In this special holiday episode of The Intelligent Enterprise, host Tom Stoneman takes a step back from the day-to-day pace of enterprise life to look at where AI has been in 2025 and where it might be heading next. To do it, he sits down with his colleague VS Joshi, Global Head of Product Marketing at Digitate, for a year-end retrospective and a 2026 outlook.

With a front-row seat to how enterprises talk about and adopt AI, VS has watched the story move from prediction and classification to creation, and now to action. He and Tom unpack how generative AI and large language models set the stage, why 2025 became the year of AI agents and agentic AI, and what it really means to treat AI as a “teammate” rather than just a tool. They discuss the botched launch of France’s Lucie chatbot as a cautionary tale about AI readiness and reputational risk, then look ahead to 2026 as a tipping point for autonomous systems, embodied AI, invisible AI embedded in processes, and a new wave of infrastructure, governance, and human–machine collaboration challenges. We also hear how VS’s life as a marathon runner has become his way of resetting outside of work.

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In this episode of The Intelligent Enterprise, host Tom Stoneman gets inside a challenge many enterprises are facing right now: how to integrate AI with complex legacy systems without breaking what already works. This week, Tom sits down with Yael Gómez, Fractional Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer at Pet Madness, and former technology leader at Walgreens Boots Alliance.

The two explore the leadership behaviours that help organizations adopt AI with both ambition and pragmatism. Yael reflects on the rise of AI “FOMO” in the C-suite, the challenge of connecting new AI experiences to multiple generations of legacy architecture, and why leaders need clear vision, strong teams, and disciplined “clock management” to turn activity into real progress.

We also hear how Yael’s daily walks and runs by Lake Michigan are not a break from the work, but part of it. They give him the space to let ideas surface, reset his priorities, and make better decisions in the middle of complex change.

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Host Tom Stoneman sits down with Dr. Maitreya Natu, Chief Data Scientist at Digitate, to explore one of the biggest questions shaping enterprise AI today: how do you build systems people actually trust? Maitreya has spent his career at the intersection of theory and real-world complexity, turning abstract ideas into AI solutions that run at scale inside some of the world’s largest organizations.

Tom and Maitreya break down the tension between algorithms that work on paper and systems people rely on in high-stakes environments. They unpack why explainability still decides whether AI gets adopted, how enterprises can move from reactive “ticket-driven” operations to proactive, ticketless ones, and why blending traditional AI with agentic AI offers the most resilient path forward.

We also hear how running gives Maitreya the headspace he needs to reset when he’s deep in a challenge. That moment of “thoughtlessness” helps him step back, rethink assumptions, and find better paths through complexity.

Follow The Intelligent Enterprise for new episodes every two weeks and stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.