Nicholas Hanges
CFO, Five Star Group of Companies
“The whole presentation sort of spoke to me, and it gave me some confidence.”
Keynote speaker on AI adoption for operators
Galina FendikevichThe antidote to AI hype.
You're already behind.AI will do your job.One prompt, job done.Agentic everything.
Bring the operator's view of AI adoption to the people in the storm doing the work. Your audience leaves with a plan they can run tomorrow.
In the audience's words
“It felt really good to know that somebody else came at it from an operator perspective as opposed to the AI company.”
SCCONF · Supply Chain Conference 2026AI adoption, supply chain and operations
Where Galina has spoken
Impact
What changed after Supply Chain Conference 2026?
Two attendees and the lead organizer, in their own words.
Mardaasa Addisu
National Supply Chain Manager, Airgas
“Galina had put together a five step plan to work on your next AI project, which I'm going to utilize for some of my company's projects.”
Maureen Erokwu
Lead organizer, SCCONF
“Her session led to some really insightful, thoughtful questions that even came back to us.”
Another room, the same real questions
At the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals event, the audience leaned in.
A talk on AI sparked engaged, clarifying questions from attendees. The conversation echoed the need Nicholas and Mardaasa described: less abstraction, more clarity about how to put technology to work.
Audience voice · Council event
Keith · Event organizer
Who it's for
Built for people responsible for making change work.
For the people in your room:
- Executive leadership teams
- Operations leaders
- Transformation and innovation leaders
- Technology leaders
- Managers and teams adopting new tools
They're asking questions like:
“Where do we start?”
“How much should we invest before we know what works?”
“How do we get our people to actually use it?”
“What should we automate, and what should remain human?”
“How do we experiment without creating chaos?”
“How do we keep moving when the technology will be different again six months from now?”
The problem
AI isn't the hard part. Making it work inside a business is.
The noise
“You're behind.”
Urgency is often a sales tactic. People need permission to start from where they are, not another reason to panic.
The trap
Tool first. Problem later.
A shiny tool or an ambitious request can stall in the IT queue. Map the workflow and name the outcome first; then choose the right technology.
The work
Adoption is human.
A leadership email isn't enough. Build peer-to-peer practice, make space for experiments, and decide what stays human before automating the rest.
The reframe
You don't need to predict what comes next.
You need a better way to respond.
Most conversations about AI begin with the technology. Galina begins with the work, informed by ongoing conversations with the people adopting it.
Instead of “What can AI do?”, ask “What problem are we trying to solve?”
AI is an enablement strategy, not a replacement strategy. Start with one headache, learn together, and keep human judgment where it matters.
The research behind the talk
Not a keynote frozen in time.
Through Artificial Reality, Galina interviews business owners, executives and operators who are adopting AI inside their organizations now.
She asks what's working, what's not and what they wish existed. Their experiences and challenges shape the stories, examples and practical questions she brings to the stage. Audiences hear what businesses are learning on the ground, not just what vendors promise.
From the interview room
Conversations with operators across industries, the raw material behind the keynote.
Signature keynote
How to Keep Up When Technology Rewrites the Rules
A practical keynote for leaders and teams navigating AI, automation and constant technological change.
Discuss your eventGalina takes audiences beyond the black-box dream of AI and into the real-world challenges of adoption and deployment. The stories come from operators who are using the technology now, not hypothetical futures.
Watch the full talk
The audience transformation
From overwhelmed by change to equipped to act.
Your audience arrives thinking...They leave thinking...
“We're already behind.”
“We know where to begin.”
“We need a huge AI strategy.”
“We can start with one meaningful problem.”
“Our people aren't ready.”
“Our people can become part of the solution.”
“We need to know where AI is going.”
“We need a way to respond as it changes.”
“We should automate everything we can.”
“We can decide deliberately what stays human.”
What the audience takes away
The realities of AI, done the right way.
The aim is not for the audience to say “I learned something interesting about AI.” It's for them to say “I understand how to move my organization forward now.”
Audiences leave equipped to:
- Find the right place to start by identifying problems worth solving before selecting technology.
- Turn experimentation into adoption by making technological change tangible and relevant to the people doing the work.
- Move without waiting for certainty through small, deliberate experiments that create learning and momentum.
- Distinguish between human, AI-assisted and automated work so technology augments judgment rather than replacing it indiscriminately.
- Build adoption from inside the organization by giving employees permission and tools to improve the workflows they understand best.
- Apply a repeatable five-step framework to their next AI or technology initiative.
Why this perspective is different
Not another view from Silicon Valley.
A great deal of the conversation about AI comes from the companies building it.
Galina's work sits on the other side: What happens when technology meets the people expected to actually use it?
Galina Fendikevich is an AI adoption and change management speaker bringing an operator's view to one of the biggest questions facing leaders today: how do you keep up when technology rewrites the rules?
Her work is the antidote to AI hype. Rather than predicting that AI will replace everyone or transform everything overnight, Galina shows audiences what adoption actually looks like inside real businesses: what is working, what is breaking, and where human judgment still matters.
As the founder and host of Artificial Reality, Galina interviews executives, operators, and experts across industries about how AI is actually being used. Those conversations give her an unusually grounded view of the gap between what technology promises and what organizations can realistically adopt.
Galina's perspective comes from working on both sides of technological change. She began in machine learning on Wall Street, co-founded a blockchain and augmented-reality company later acquired by Niantic (creators of Pokémon Go), and went on to lead U.S. go-to-market for a generative AI unicorn. Across those roles, she has spent her career translating emerging technology into real-world adoption.
Her keynote, How to Keep Up When Technology Rewrites the Rules, gives leaders a practical framework for navigating technological change without chasing every trend or freezing in fear. Audiences learn how to identify what is actually changing in their work, where AI can create value, what should remain human, and how to make better decisions while the technology itself continues to evolve.
Audiences leave with five principles they can apply immediately: learn enough to stop being afraid, map the work, start with one real problem, protect the human core, and become translators between technology and reality.
Curious by nature, Galina speed runs life and keeps her passport ready for the next conversation.
At a glance
Wall Street Machine Learning → Tech Exit to Niantic (a $9 billion company and the creator of Pokémon Go) → U.S. GTM at a generative AI unicorn company → Founder, Artificial Reality
Follow along
Speaker reel
Speaker one-pager
Download the one-pager (PDF)Everything on a single page: the keynote, formats and what audiences walk out knowing.
Speaking formats
The right shape for your room.
20–45 minutes
Conference keynote
Operator stories, a practical framework and one action people can take back to work.
Leadership & teams
Internal AI Kickoff
For leadership teams, upskilling programs, or departments trying to get people comfortable and moving.
Working session
Workshop: Remove the One Thing You Dread
A working session where attendees map one real workflow and leave with a clearer AI request, business case, or experiment.