Vijaya Vardhan Panthagani

PowerSchool

Senior Director - Technical Support

Technical Support Site Leader for a 200+ team of technical support staff. Direct span of 3 senior managers and 2 Associate Directors. Indirect span of 15 managers. 

Accountable for technical support delivery, quality and customer experience for NA, EMEA and APAC regions from Bangalore site. Responsible for developing and growing India COE in partnership with India Site Leadership Team.

Director - Technical Support

SaaS Labs

As the head of our global customer support operation, I oversee a team of 40 engineers, 3 team leaders, and 2 managers responsible for customer support across the globe.

EFFICIENCY: 
• Implemented automated conversation snoozing, resulting in a 30% reduction in first response time and a 40% improvement in subsequent response times.
• Introduced response automation through an AI bot (FIN), with AI participating in 30% of chat conversations and achieving a 20% answer resolution rate.
• Streamlined our training plan, reducing the go-live time by 50% through live training sessions and a phased approach to handling initial customer chats.

SERVICE GROWTH:
• Introduced 4 support offerings aligned with our pricing packages, spanning both chat and email channels
• Implemented weekend US shift support for 10 DLC returning and new customers, as well as our priority customers.

SERVICE ENHANCEMENT:
• Significantly improved the refund and cancellation flow, resulting in a more than 50% reduction in refund approval time.
• Enhanced the SDR process, achieving a 30% reduction in response times for 70% of our lead volume.
• Improved help articles, leading to a 23% case deflection and a subsequent improvement in support capacity.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE:
• Expedited customer issue, feature, and bug prioritization by 30% through a monthly Voice of Customer (VOC) report shared with the global leadership team.
• Developed and executed a Customer Support and Customer Success handoff process, leading to a 30% improvement in ticket response times and positively impacting customer retention.

PEOPLE GROWTH:
• Implemented a consistent performance and promotion criteria in partnership with the HR team, mitigating the perception of unfairness and appropriately rewarding top performers.
• Invested in technical upskilling of L1 engineers and cultivated a 6-member L2 team through a dedicated technical trainer and a 3-member lean QA team.

Director - Customer Support

Atlassian

Responsible for technical support delivery, escalation management, customer experience for our Select and Priority customers. Operations and people growth for a 14 member team of senior technical support engineers supporting our Confluence suite of products.  

Over the last 2 years, while being 100% remote,

•	Built trust with my team through regular team bonding, right feedback, removing roadblocks and being an enabler.

•	Drove team success in technical specialization moving the needle from 10% to 70% while onboarding 5 new hires in the last 2 quarters

•	Stabilized the Confluence Select team across 
  - Customer orientation (improved NPS & CSAT by 27%)
	- Internal process/tools adoption (improved by 36%)

•	Leading the hiring effort for FY22 (Jul - Jun 2022) and achieved 100% senior engineer hire calls over the last 3 quarters 
 - Enabled trust and collaboration between a 6 member Talent Acquisition team, 9 peers, 4 senior management execs and 20+ senior tech interviewers  across BLR and Amsterdam
 - Defined strategy and execution. Solved for volume forecast, operational code red situation and a sub-optimal candidate pipeline

•	Leading the weekend staffing planning and execution for EMEA region during FY21 AND FY22
 - Enabled trust and collaboration between 30 senior support engineers, 4 peers and 2 senior management execs across BLR and Amsterdam
 - Defined strategy and execution. Solved for for volume forecast, regional holidays, technology upskilling and weekend compensation policies across BLR and Amsterdam.

Enterprise Support Manager

Citrix

Responsible for technical support delivery, critical escalation management and customer experience for our Priority and Priority Plus customer program. Operations and people management of a 15 member team of senior technical specialists supporting our Virtual Apps Desktops and Citrix Cloud suite of products. 

Actively engaged in support improvement programs with global stakeholders (TRMs, Account managers and Customer Success Managers) to improve our priority customer experience:

•	Reduced Average speed of answer on the call queues by 60%
•	Cross-skilled 80% of the engineers on 70% of VAD products and 100% of Cloud technologies
•	Expanded the team by 25% to accommodate the tech support for growing priority customer base @ 20% Q-on-Q
•	Executed a Rewards & Recognition program to improve priority engineer experience and retention

Senior Manager, Priority Support Program - Virtual Apps and Desktops

Responsible for technical support delivery, escalation management and people management of a 15 member senior technical specialist team for our Virtual Apps and Desktops products.  Maintained a superior customer experience with an NPS >=75.

Technical Support Manager III

Responsible for technical support delivery, operations and people management  of an 18 member team of technical experts supporting the XenServer suite of products at Citrix. Additionally, I spearheaded the below initiatives as part of my role:

•	Net Promoter Score improvement initiative which resulted in NPS moving up from 60 to 65 within 6 months.
•	Advanced Customer handling skills interventions that reduced voice-based customer escalations by 40%

Technical Support Manager II (XenServer)

Talisma

Transforming Customer Experience to over 300 Higher Education Enterprise Customers globally, in the current role as off-shore program manager of a cost center. Leadership role in scaling up release management program to 24x7. Revenue generated from the off-shore cost center - US $ 200,000 per year. Additionally, built and managing a 24x7 technical support team, to cater to Middle East and Africa geographies.

Senior Technical Support Manager - Release Management

In this role, I managed release management delivery to 300 premier US customers across all US timezones with a team of 12 technical experts.I developed skill-gap analysis for all resources and charted a proactive technical training program in-line with new technologies in the future product versions – reduced customer escalations by 50% post new product version releases.

Technical Support Manager - Release Management

In this program, I managed a profit center having 16 premium customers having one technical Talisma on-site support consultant/expert onsite, per customer, pan India.  All the remote on-site support experts were full -time employees of Talisma reporting to me. The size of the business was INR 2 crores per year. I was responsible for customer contract renewal, annually. I also managed AMC renewals of Bangalore region customers having standard support contracts, as an additional responsibility. Achieved 100% AMC renewals. Used innovative cost savings techniques to achieve 50% profit margin.

Technical Support Manager - Expert Services

Managing Customer Experience to over 100 Talisma CRM Customers in APAC & Europe region. Responsible for 24x7 product support delivery with a team of 15 technical support experts.Additionally, planned and managed delivery of two Talisma CRM upgrade projects & one server migration project with existing resources. Overall, revenue to company was INR 10 lakhs.

Technical Support Manager - Product Support

I was the Technical Escalation SPOC for a profit center (Expert Services) having around 16 premium customers across India. Quarterly travel to customer locations to review resource/system performance with customer IT/BU heads.I also assisted with finalizing Expert Services annual support contracts for existing and new customers. Additionally, I anticipated and converted a customer’s reporting business requirement into an SOW worth USD $ 10,000 and managed delivery with an existing resource – zero additional cost to company.

Technical Lead - Expert Services

Managed a USD $30,000 SQL Server reporting services project for a marquee customer of Campus Management - Career Ed Corporation, Chicago, IL. I traveled to customer location in US for requirement gathering and project planning for 4 weeks. In a short period of 2 weeks, I formed and trained a 3 member off-shore team (including myself) to meet customer's business requirements.

Technical Lead - Reporting Services

I led a team of support escalation engineers to provide solutions for high priority product bugs and Support escalations via the Sustain Engineering Program. I influenced customer oriented decisions by liaising between Support and Development as a customer advocate.

Technical Lead - Sustain Engineering

I provided Premier Application Support and was SPOC (Single Point of Contact) for Talisma CRM implementation at Microsoft. I managed a complex Talisma application installation of 10 database servers (SQL cluster), 6 IIS servers (cluster), 4 Application servers (cluster) and 20 Windows 2003 terminal servers. Provided technical mentoring and process-orientation for a team of 5 support engineers based out of Bangalore, India.

Senior Technical Support Engineer

My job was to troubleshoot and resolve Talisma product technical support cases and ensuring high customer satisfaction rates. I also did process-orientation and technical mentoring for L1 support engineers.

Technical Support Engineer

My job was to write and execute test cases for the assigned modules in the Talisma product. I was the Feature Owner for Talisma CRM Sales Module and Offline Client. I researched on the Higher Education vertical and submitted a case study on implementing Talisma CRM in a University based setup.

Software Test Engineer

National Informatics Center

This was my first internship-cum-job straight out of college. First experience with a real time programming language and databases. Developed & supported a module in VB 6.0 and Oracle 8i as part of the Land Records Management Information System maintained by the Govt of AP. The cool thing about this project was I used language API's to be able to show the front end UI for my module in TELUGU (local language).

Software Engineer

I help managers demolish self doubt, get clarity and become promotable | Transformational Leadership Coach | Technical Support Leader

Over the last 20 years, I've built and scaled technical support teams ranging from 10 to 200+ staff across both Fortune 500 companies and startups. My speciality lies in setting vision and following it up with ruthless execution to achieve people and business outcomes. I prioritize progress over perfection and problem solving over innovation. I believe perfection and innovation are achieved through relentless focus on moving forward.

Director of Customer Support

Busy building the best customer service team on the planet. Hit me up if you are passionate about elevating customer experience through employee experience. I promise you won't regret the time spent :-)

✨ What I Do

I turn strategy into execution by building products, platforms, and experiences that drive growth and work in the real world.

I help organizations move from intent to outcomes across omnichannel, partner, and digital ecosystems, aligning teams, tools, and decisions so operators and customers feel the impact.

My unfair advantage is range.

I’m a military veteran with roots in supply chain, sales, marketing, and operations, applied across entertainment, retail, grocery, technology, and QSR. That breadth gives me a systems view of how strategy, experience, and execution connect.

I work comfortably with engineers building platforms, with sales and marketing teams shaping demand, with operators running the business, and with executives setting direction. My role is to translate between those worlds, reduce complexity, and focus teams on the few decisions that matter most.

Across multiple business and technology cycles, I’ve led initiatives spanning digital commerce, consumer experience, data, and emerging technology, including AI/ML, automation, and omnichannel platforms, always in service of commercial and operational goals, not "innovation theater."

I’m especially energized by the messy middle, where ambiguity is high, tradeoffs are real, and progress depends on clarity, influence, and follow-through.

🎯 What I Deliver

Strategy → execution across omnichannel, partner, and digital experiences
Product and experience leadership from discovery through scale
Consumer and operator-centric journey design
Cross-functional leadership across sales, marketing, product, engineering, analytics, and operations
Practical frameworks for decision-making, experimentation, and measurement
Revenue growth, cost efficiency, and operational lift

🚀 Impact Highlights

Built and scaled a 20K sq-ft innovation lab delivering $552M+ in enterprise value
Launched mobile, payments, and location-based experiences driving double-digit sales and engagement
Led global digital and partner initiatives, improving conversion and ROI
Modernized omnichannel commerce platforms delivering sustained sales lift
Designed and operated live retail and QSR test-and-learn environments to de-risk investment

📌 How I Lead

I lead with clarity, curiosity, and accountability. Innovation should be exciting, but also trusted, measurable, and scalable by the people who run the business every day.

If you’re modernizing operations, elevating digital and partner experiences, or turning strategy into execution at scale, I’m always open to a thoughtful conversation!

Michael Guzzetta

National Retail Federation's Big Show didn’t feel futuristic this year. It felt… responsible. Less talk about what could happen and evidence of what retailers are finally willing to run in production.

The real story wasn’t just flashy tech. It was background work getting handled.

Stores getting easier to adjust. Faster decisions replacing perfect ones. Technology showing up where it actually helps people do the job.

I put together a special NRF edition of The Innovation Blueprint to capture what actually mattered once the booths came down.

No trend bingo or vendor theater... Just the things that crossed from pilot to practice.

I've also debuted the first video segment of my new video podcast, interviewing Felipe Gonzalez for his perspective on how NRF trends are landing in Europe (link in article).

👉 Read the article
🔁 Repost if it’s useful
➕ Follow for more operator-first takes on retail tech

#NRF2026 #RetailInnovation #EmergingTech #RetailOperations  #AIinRetail

View newsletter: The Innovation Blueprint

NRF Week: Less Demos. More Decisions. Each year, the National Retail Federation's Big Show week is undoubtedly exciting, but it usually comes with a f

Open article: The Weekly Blueprint: NRF Big Show Special Edition by Michael Guzzetta • 8 min read

The Weekly Blueprint: NRF Big Show Special Edition

Many experts think that cashierless stores are the future of grocery. But that’s not the only play…

What’s also gaining traction in Europe is something on wheels… Smart carts.

Specifically, the pilot Carrefour has been running in France using cart-based computer vision from Shopic.

Here’s why this matters.

Instead of rebuilding stores with ceiling cameras, Carrefour is:

• clipping AI directly onto existing carts
• recognizing items as they’re added
• showing live basket totals and promos
• speeding checkout without forcing new behavior

No app hostage situation. No lane demolition. No “store of the future” cosplay. Just fewer “uh…” moments in the aisle.

The real problem they’re solving isn’t about eliminating checkout. It’s about decision latency.

In grocery, latency shows up as:
• shoppers hesitating
• baskets getting edited down
• lines backing up
• associates getting pulled into exception handling

Smart carts attack friction before checkout even starts. That’s the insight most press coverage misses.

The shift (12–24 months out):

We’re going to see fewer “big bang” cashierless builds and more edge-based, modular augmentation:

• faster pilots
• lower capex
• easier rollback
• clearer ROI

Europe is leading here because stores are older, denser, and less tolerant of tech theater. The solutions have to earn their keep.

I’ve seen this pattern before at scale when tech reduces thinking time, conversion goes up!

The operator playbook:

If I were running this pilot:

• one store
• one month
• one metric

👉 Time from last item added to payment complete

If that drops meaningfully without hurting satisfaction, you scale. If not, you kill it and move on.

Stores don’t need more dashboards. They need faster, calmer decisions.

Follow for real-world retail tech breakdowns…  the kind that survive pilots, not just keynotes.

#RetailInnovation #EdgeAI #GroceryTech #StoreOperations #DecisionVelocity

No alternative text description for this image

Most stores already know when a shelf is empty. That’s not the problem… The issue is how long it takes to do something about it!

I’ve seen teams collect immaculate data and then wait hours (sometimes days!) for a human to interpret it, route it, approve it, and act. Um…

That gap? That’s where margin does to die. 

The shift I’m watching in the field is going from dashboards that describe the past to
edge AI that triggers action in the moment.

When a tiny vision model runs directly in the store:
• Shelf gap is detected in seconds
• Confidence threshold is met on-device
• Task routed instantly to the nearest associate
• No cloud round-trip. No swivel chair. No meeting about it.

Companies like ImageVision.ai  are making this shift a reality.  

Retailers like Kroger and Walmart keep leaning into edge-based inventory intelligence instead of piling on more reporting layers.

Same tech stack… Very different outcomes.

🧩 The Retail Innovation Triangle™
• Operator impact: Faster recovery = fewer lost sales
• Technical shift: Tiny models + on-device inference
• Pilot path: One aisle. One camera. One workflow

If i were leading store transformation, here’s what i would do… Start where latency hurts the most, not where the data looks prettiest.

Stores don’t need more dashboards. They need decisions that show up on time!

That’s how I’m seeing this play out in the field. What are you seeing?

👍 If this is useful, follow for more operator-grade takes on emerging tech in retail. I break down what actually works, why it works, and how I’d pilot it.

#RetailInnovation #EdgeAI #StoreOperations #DecisionVelocity #RetailTech

Here’s why I think Diebold Nixdorf is one of the most interesting operators in retail tech right now, and why it’s a very German kind of innovation.

While everyone else is chasing flashy AI demos, Diebold Nixdorf is chasing “boring” decisions:

• Which lane should open right now
• Which SCO needs help before shrink happens
• Which store task should get done first, not “eventually”

That’s the difference. They’re embedding AI and analytics directly into POS + self-checkout + store ops, instead of bolting on another dashboard no one logs into.

They are pushing hard on AI-driven store orchestration, especially in grocery and big-box environments across Europe:

• Real-time checkout intelligence
Detects friction, exceptions, and abandonment while it’s happening, not in yesterday’s report.
• Predictive task routing for associates
Think: fewer radio calls, fewer “Can someone cover lane 4?”, more proactive nudges.
• Shrink + loss alerts are baked into checkout. Not just cameras watching customers, but systems watching process breakdowns.

This isn’t “AI replaces people.” It’s “AI removes dumb friction so people can actually do their jobs.”

🔧 Why operators should care

Because this hits the real constraint tha I keep hounding on… decision latency inside the store.

Most retailers don’t lack data. They lack timely, confident decisions at the edge.

When…
• a lane backs up
• an SCO goes sideways
• labor is stretched thin

…the system should already know what to do.

That’s what Diebold Nixdorf is optimizing for.

🎯 My POV (having lived in stores, not slides)

I’ve seen too many pilots fail because:
• insights arrive too late
• alerts go to the wrong role
• or the associate has no time to act anyway

This approach flips that!

Fewer dashboards. More embedded decisions. More trust at the edge.

That’s how this actually scales.

If you’re running store ops or innovation, start with the moments where decisions stall. That’s where the real ROI hides.

👉 Follow for daily operator-grade retail tech breakdowns
👉 Subscribe to Innovation Blueprint for weekly deep dives
👉 Share if checkout friction keeps showing up on your ops scorecard

#RetailTechnology #StoreOperations #EdgeAI #GroceryTech #RetailInnovation

Here’s a fun one for today, because the future is getting oddly… helpful. Europe is pushing to take the lead in humanoid robots that actually do work, not demos.

Case in point: NEURA Robotics out of Germany. Not dancing robots or “look what it might do someday” robots. 

These are collaborative humanoids designed to work next to humans in warehouses, factories, and logistics ops... Picking, moving and assisting (safely!).

What’s really interesting isn’t the hardware. It’s the mindset shift.

The conversation used to be, “Will robots replace people?” Now it’s, “Which jobs are so repetitive or injury-prone that not using robots is irresponsible?” That’s a big psychological unlock for operators!

Also worth noting... Europe is optimizing for human-robot collaboration, not full autonomy theater. Think less sci-fi and more OSHA-approved reality. That’s how tech actually scales.

I’m watching this space closely, especially as retail, supply chain, and food ops all collide with labor math that no amount of optimism fixes.

Humanoid robotics isn’t a single-company story anymore. This is turning into a global arms race driven by labor math, not sci-fi dreams.

Don't take your eye off of these guys:

Boston Dynamics – still the bar for real-world mobility and control
Figure – pushing hard into commercial pilots
Agility Robotics – warehouse-first, operator-minded
Unitree Robotics – fast, affordable, and scaling aggressively
Tesla – controversial, but can’t be ignored
Sanctuary AI – focused on dexterity and task generalization

This stopped being about if humanoids show up in operations... Now it’s about who integrates them first, and who waits too long!

➡️ Follow me for practical takes on emerging tech.
📰 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes
🤖 Share if you’re seeing robots move from novelty to necessity

#EmergingTech #Robotics #Automation

Supply chain tech isn’t just for the big Fortune 50 guys anymore… it’s for SMBs too!

Small and medium businesses are finally getting tools that don’t assume a team of planners, analysts, and spreadsheets held together by vibes.

What’s actually making a difference right now:

Inventory that predicts, not reacts. Platforms like StockIQ Technologies and Netstock use lightweight forecasting so SMBs aren’t guessing reorder points at 11pm on a Sunday.

Shipping orchestration without the chaos. Tools like ShipBob and EasyPost let small teams route, rate-shop, and recover from delays without living inside carrier portals.

Warehouse automation that fits in a garage, not a football field. Companies like Locus Robotics and 6 River Systems, Part of Ocado Group are proving you don’t need a mega-DC to get productivity gains.

AI copilots for ops, not slide decks. Startups like Airspace and project44 focus on exception handling… what’s late, what’s stuck, and what actually needs a human decision.

The pattern I keep seeing is  less “digital transformation,” and more “make tomorrow less painful than today.”

For small domino businesses, that’s the win! Knock down the right constraint, and the whole chain starts moving. 📈

➕ Follow me for practical takes on emerging tech
📩 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes
♻️ Share if you’re seeing supply chain tech finally meet operators where they are

#supplychain #logistics #smallbusiness #retailtech #emergingtechnology

Image: Relion

Product + Innovation Leader in Retail and Guest Experience | Omnichannel, Digital Transformation, AI, CV, Robotics | $552M+ impact | USAF Veteran

Woot! I just completed another certification! The first of many for 2026. Continuing my Digital Product Management Specialization with University of Virginia and Coursera, I just wrapped Agile Meets Design Thinking. This was an awesome course. 

I learned:

✅ How to better evaluate and explain the relevance of concepts and practices from the agile development methodologies  

✅ How to more easily diagnose what technology will be valuable to the user and how to test your ideas using agile user stories and prototypes 

✅ How to create a stronger shared perspective and drive to value using design methods like personas and problem scenarios  
 
✅ How to facilitate narrative collaboration with user stories and prototypes

I've used these practices at a high level in a variety of projects throughout my career, but this knowledge will help drive stronger outcomes with future emerging tech product development.

Excited for the remainder of the coursework. Here's to a smarter 2026!

https://lnkd.in/gjvA2Jpc

NRF generates a lot of noise. This conversation cuts through it, and looks at what’s actually landing in Europe.

In this first segment, Felipe Gonzalez and I talk about what really shifted at NRF this year. And what didn’t.

Fewer buzzwords... More operator reality.

What stood out wasn’t flashy demos. It was where AI, automation, and retail teams finally started meeting in the middle.

First cut. More coming!

If this kind of thinking fires you up, you’ll love The Innovation Blueprint. It’s where I break down the systems behind emerging tech and experience design. Subscribe today! https://lnkd.in/gbQXW79f

#NRF2026 #RetailInnovation #RetailTech #AIinRetail #Omnichannel #InnovationBlueprint

NRF shows what retail wants to build. Davos shows what retail will be allowed to build.

This week, while most of the industry focused on stores, shelves, and robots, World Economic Forum convened:

• 400+ political leaders
• ~65 heads of state
• ~850 global CEOs
• Nearly 100 unicorn founders

No booths or demos, but plenty of decisions that quietly shape AI, energy, supply chains, and global trade... the real constraints retail innovation now lives inside.

In this week’s edition of The Innovation Blueprint, I break down:

• Why AI is now being discussed as infrastructure, not software
• How energy and compute are becoming competitive advantages
• Why supply chains are being treated like strategic assets again
• What “the permission economy” means for retailers trying to scale innovation

This isn’t a Davos recap. It’s a translation for retail leaders who need to understand the rules of the game, not just the tools.

📩 New newsletter is live!
👉 Follow me for practical takes on retail innovation, AI, and emerging tech
👉 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes
👉 Share this with a leader who still thinks innovation happens in a vacuum

#TheInnovationBlueprint #RetailInnovation #Davos2026 #WorldEconomicForum

This year’s 56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, convenes broader and deeper than ever before. A record 400

Open article: 🌐 Davos 2026: Where the Global Economy, Innovation & Retail’s Future Are Being Negotiated by Michael Guzzetta • 5 min read

🌐 Davos 2026: Where the Global Economy, Innovation & Retail’s Future Are Being Negotiated

Equipment innovation isn’t about robots. It’s about removing friction where humans actually feel it. sweetgreen doesn’t talk like a robotics company, and that’s the point. 

This isn't breaking news, but it's timely... Sweetgreen's Infinite Kitchen doesn't chase autonomy for its own sake. They redesigned the equipment layer.

🥬 Ingredients flow instead of being reached for
⚖️ Portions are mechanically consistent
♻️ Repetitive motion disappears
🧑‍🍳 Throughput goes up without turning people into line robots

What’s interesting isn’t the automation... It’s the restraint. Humans still do the judgment-heavy work. Machines do the boring, repeatable stuff. The kitchen layout changes to support both.

That’s equipment innovation at its best. Not replacing labor or “AI-powered” theatrics... Just fewer wasted steps, fewer bottlenecks, and calmer shifts.

This is the same lesson I keep seeing across retail, QSR, and manufacturing. The winners aren’t building smarter machines. They’re designing better interfaces between people and equipment. That’s where the real ROI lives!

By the end of 2025, Sweetgreen had roughly 30 to 40 Infinite Kitchen locations in operation. For 2026, the company plans to open 15 to 20 new restaurants, with about half of those featuring Infinite Kitchen automation.

They recently launched their first Infinite Kitchen with a "Sweetlane" (a digital drive-thru pickup lane) in Costa Mesa, CA, which opened in November 2025.

Most locations are traditional, but you can find the automated Infinite Kitchen technology at several newer or retrofitted spots, including:
- Naperville, IL (The original pilot location)
- Costa Mesa, CA (The first automated drive-thru)
- Sacramento, CA (Recent expansion)
- Huntington Beach & Penn Quarter (Various other high-traffic units)


👉 Follow me for practical takes on emerging tech
📩 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes
🔁 Share if you think equipment design matters more than buzzwords

#EquipmentInnovation #RestaurantTech #Automation #Operations

AI isn’t the intern anymore... It’s starting to run the floor. 🤖 

This week’s Innovation Blueprint picks up where Davos left off and is an leading indicator for the real world of hotels, stores, kitchens, and supply chains where AI is quickly moving from advice to execution.

What’s changing fast:
 • Experience Ops is now a capital decision, not a side experiment
 • Robotics has crossed from demos to dependable throughput
 • Kitchens and stores are becoming decision environments
 • Agentic commerce is moving from theory to real transactions

Huge thanks to Felipe Gonzalez for the global perspective, especially his breakdown of what actually mattered at Davos and why Europe’s strength in physical AI, digital twins, and industrial automation deserves serious attention from US retailers.

This edition is less about hype and more about what’s being funded, deployed, and trusted right now.

👇 Drop a comment if you’re seeing AI move from “recommend” to “do” inside your organization.

👉 Follow for weekly insights on retail, hospitality, and QSR innovation
💬 Comment with what you’re seeing on the ground
🔁 Share with operators who are done with buzzwords
⭐ Subscribe to the Innovation Blueprint so you don’t miss next week!

#InnovationBlueprint #RetailInnovation #HospitalityTech #QSR #AgenticAI

For the last two years, we’ve talked about AI like a smart intern... Helpful, eager, and occasionally wrong. This week’s signal is different. Across r

Open article: The Weekly Blueprint: When AI Stops Assisting and Starts Running the Floor by Michael Guzzetta • 6 min read

The Weekly Blueprint: When AI Stops Assisting and Starts Running the Floor

I keep noticing the same pattern when I look at what’s coming out of Europe right now.

Retail tech there feels less obsessed with big AI moments and more focused on getting everyday decisions closer to the store.

Edge AI is a good example. Instead of routing everything back to the cloud, more of the intelligence is sitting on-site, right next to the cameras, sensors, and operational systems. That means inventory gets corrected faster, shrink is flagged while it’s happening, and store teams aren’t waiting on a dashboard update or a weekly report to act.

It’s not flashy… and that’s okay. Not everything can or should be! It’s practical. And it changes behavior.

Once stores can see and respond in real time, they stop feeling like endpoints and start acting like systems that can manage themselves within clear guardrails.

Worth watching how companies like Carrefour are approaching this. It’s a more systematic kind of innovation, but it tends to stick.

➕ Follow me for practical takes on emerging tech.
📩 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes.
♻️ Share if you’re seeing decision-making move closer to the store floor.

#RetailInnovation #EdgeAI #StoreOperations #EmergingTech #FutureOfRetail

Everyone keeps asking when AI will “transform” retail... From where I’m sitting, it already did. Just not in the ways people expected.

The shift didn’t happen on a keynote stage.

It showed up in back rooms, stockrooms, kitchens, and control panels. Places where decisions used to lag by hours or days and now happen in minutes.

⏱️ Pricing updates before shelves go empty
📊 Labor adjustments before managers start guessing
⚠️ Equipment flagging problems before a line backs up and customers feel it

None of this looks futuristic... But that’s why it works!

The most useful tech right now isn’t trying to impress anyone. It’s taking pressure off operators who already have enough on their plate.

If your AI story starts with dashboards and ends with PowerPoint, you’re probably late.

If it starts with one painful decision and removes friction from it, you’re doing something right.

Foot Locker has been doing exactly this across parts of their fleet:

🏷️ RFID-driven inventory accuracy so pricing and allocation happen early
🚶‍♂️ Labor planning tied to traffic patterns, not gut feel
🚨 In-store tech flagging friction before associates and customers feel it

It’s not a demo. It’s operational muscle built one decision at a time.

That’s the gap between experimenting with AI and actually using it.

👉 Follow me for practical takes on emerging tech
📬 Subscribe to The Innovation Blueprint for weekly field notes from the floor
🔁 Share if you’re seeing tech move from hype to habit

#RetailInnovation #EmergingTech #AIInRetail #Operations

This is one of those moments where you stop scrolling and just go… uh, wow!

Watching Boston Dynamics Atlas move like this isn’t about “cool robots.” It’s what happens when hardware, software, and control systems finally snap together.

The real “aha” for me isn’t the acrobatics. Its…

• Perception + balance are getting absurdly good
• Edge intelligence is doing real work, in real time
• The gap between lab demo and operational reality is shrinking fast

We’re not far from robots that don’t need perfectly staged environments to be useful.
And that’s when things actually change… warehouses, manufacturing, retail backrooms, even theme parks.”!

Still early. Still hard. But this is the kind of progress you can feel.

👏 to the teams pushing the boundaries (and probably breaking a few ankles along the way).

#Robotics #AI #Automation #EdgeAI #EmergingTech

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🔁 Repost if this made you pause mid-scroll

Boston Dynamics and Hyundai Motor Company  just revealed the next big thing for the world, its next gen atlas robot which they are officially taking out of the lab 
- a robot which is truly autonomously viable in real world setting,
- capable of swapping its own batteries, 
- learning things we tell and 
- utilising how nature designed our movements along with advantage of truly robotic motors for moving in any way it wants. 
- It has 56 degrees of freedom, 
- fully rotational joints, 
- human scale hands with tactile sensing, 360 degree cameras, capable of lifting up to 110 pounds, can reach up to 7.5 feet in the air! 
- It is water resistant, can operate between -4 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit 
- New tasks can be trained to it in less than a day!
The mind blowing fact is that all the atlas robots are connected - shared intelligence through the Orbit platform. 
One robot learns a skill - can be shared with all atlas robots!

We are at the pivotal moment where the humanoid robots truly work in a real world setting!
Kudos to Robert Playter, Marc Theermann and all of the Boston Dynamics team, this is amazing!

What excites me most about this new Atlas is how it addresses the generalization problem I've been following; the ability to learn new tasks quickly and share knowledge across the robot fleet via Orbit is exactly the direction robotics needs to move beyond single-purpose machines. This is the future of adaptable robotics I'm passionate about building!

#BostonDynamics  #AtlasRobot #Robotics #HumanoidRobotics #RoboticEngineering #AutomatedLearning #AIRobotics #FutureOfWork #HyundaiRobotics #RoboticsInnovation

Everyone’s talking about “AI strategy,” but most teams are actually dealing with AI reality...

Reality looks like this - A tool demo that worked great on stage… and then fell apart once it hit legacy systems, real Associates, or actual Guests.

The interesting work right now isn’t about capability. It’s about fit! A good example? Walmart

What’s impressive isn’t that they’re using AI. Everyone is! It’s where they’re using it.

📦 Inventory decisions that happen closer to the shelf.
📥 Replenishment logic that reduces exceptions instead of creating them.
🛠️ Associate tools that answer questions instead of sending people hunting through systems.

None of that is flashy... but all of it saves time. They're working on the plumbing that creates a more seamless experience for Associates and a more delightful experience for Guests.

That’s the pattern I keep seeing from teams who are actually making progress. AI shows up as fewer handoffs, fewer overrides, fewer “can you just check this?” moments.

The gap between “this is impressive!” and “this actually helps!” is where most projects stall. That gap isn’t a technology problem. It’s an operating one.

The teams winning in 2026 aren’t chasing intelligence. They’re designing for decision velocity. And that’s a very different muscle to build.

If you care about how emerging tech actually shows up in operations (not just decks), I write about it in The Innovation Blueprint.

Follow along or subscribe for weekly field notes.

#RetailInnovation #AIinRetail #Walmart #DecisionVelocity #InnovationBlueprint

Image: Getty Images

What’s coming out of China right now is closer to a mobile parcel hub than a robot courier.

Companies like Meituan are deploying autonomous delivery vehicles built around secure locker compartments, not individual payloads.

One vehicle carries a dozen or more temperature-controlled lockers. Each stop can serve multiple customers. Orders are loaded upstream, routed efficiently, and unlocked by recipients when the vehicle arrives.

No handoff or waiting for a driver, and no one juggling five orders and a clock.

This model scales very differently from U.S. gig delivery.

Instead of one driver per order, you get:
• One vehicle per neighborhood run
• Multiple deliveries per stop
• Predictable routing and timing
• Much lower marginal cost per order

Compare that to most third-party delivery in the U.S., where cost resets every single time an order is placed. Labor scales linearly. Incentives creep upward. Margins stay thin.

Now contrast that with Starship Technologies.

Starship optimizes for single-order, short-distance delivery. Great for campuses and dense pedestrian zones. Limited payload. One customer at a time.

The Chinese locker vehicles optimize for batch density. They behave more like a rolling micro-DC than a courier.

Two different answers to the same question:
“How do we stop paying humans to wait?”

This is the part U.S. delivery conversations often miss.

Autonomy isn’t just about replacing drivers. It’s about redesigning the unit of delivery itself. One bag versus many orders. One stop versus many unlocks.

Once you change that unit, the economics change with it.

And that’s where current gig-based delivery starts to look less like the future and more like a very expensive bridge.

Images: Meituan & Starship

#AutonomousDelivery #LastMile #RetailInnovation #Logistics #FutureOfCommerce #RetailTech

👉 Follow for more field notes on where delivery models are actually heading
🔁 Share this with someone still modeling delivery as one driver, one order

📣Newsletter drop! In this week's edition I start to dive into my omnichannel technology predictions for 2026, one by one. First up? The Edge.

Most omnichannel strategies still assume decisions should live far away from the moment they matter... Big cloud. Big dashboards. BIG delays!

But after spending years standing in stores, kitchens, and frontline ops watching people wait for systems to catch up, one thing is clear... Latency is the enemy.

That’s why my first prediction for 2026 isn’t about more AI. It’s about where intelligence lives.

In this week’s edition of The Innovation Blueprint, I unpack why Edge AI becomes the omnichannel brain… and how moving one broken decision closer to the action can completely change how leaders think about speed, trust, and execution.

No architecture rabbit holes. No hype! Just a practical playbook you can actually use.

☕️ Grab a coffee and give it a read.

👉 Follow me for weekly insights on omnichannel innovation & emerging tech
 💬 Comment to add your perspective... frontline insights welcome!
 🔗 Share with a leader who’s tired of waiting on dashboards
 ⭐ Subscribe so you don’t miss what we unpack next

#EdgeAI #Omnichannel #RetailInnovation #DecisionVelocity

🎉 The Innovation Blueprint - New Year Edition Unpacking Prediction #1 for 2026: Edge AI Becomes the Omnichannel Brain Speaking of unpacking... I just

Open article: Unpacking Prediction #1 for 2026: Edge AI Becomes the Omnichannel Brain by Michael Guzzetta • 4 min read

Unpacking Prediction #1 for 2026: Edge AI Becomes the Omnichannel Brain

Sundays mess with my head a little. In a good way… No meetings. No urgency. Just enough space to notice patterns I usually blow past during the week.

One of them keeps coming back to me lately…

Most transformation efforts don’t fail because the tech is bad. They fail because no one slowed down long enough to ask what decision they were actually trying to improve.

I’ve seen it at big brands and in scrappy pilots. I’ve also seen it when teams were genuinely trying to do the right thing. I’m We rush to build before we’re clear on why this decision even matters.

Sunday is usually when I remind myself of the opposite instinct. Clarity first. Speed second. Scale last.

When you get the decision right, the tech almost feels obvious. When you don’t, no amount of AI, automation, or dashboards will save it.

That mindset has followed me everywhere I’ve worked. It’s how pilots survive and how operators stay sane. That’s how innovation earns trust instead of eye-rolls.

Tomorrow the pace picks back up. But today? Today is for remembering what actually matters. Family!

If this resonates, follow along. I write about the messy middle more than the shiny headlines.

#Leadership #RetailInnovation #DecisionMaking #SundayThoughts

This is exactly the kind of thing that gets my attention as a parent.

I’ve got two young sons who already talk about becoming Imagineers. Not because it sounds flashy, but because they like figuring out how things work, breaking them, and rebuilding them better. Platforms like LEGO Education meet kids right where that curiosity lives… hands-on, visual, playful, but still grounded in real computer science and AI concepts.

That’s the on-ramp to places like Walt Disney Imagineering. You don’t start with theory slides and jargon. You start by making things move, respond, and surprise you.

If this had existed when I was a kid, I would’ve disappeared into it for hours. Watching it show up now for the next generation is genuinely exciting.

What if, instead of teaching students how to use AI, we empowered them to understand what AI truly is?

Introducing LEGO® Education Computer Science & AI—our innovative, hands-on classroom tool designed for K-8 learning. It brings the fundamental concepts of computer science and AI to life in an engaging, collaborative way, ensuring learning is impactful, meaningful, and relevant.

Rooted in our core values of child safety, privacy, and well-being, this tool allows children to explore AI responsibly. By creating AI models in safe, controlled environments, students not only grasp the technology but also develop agency and active engagement.

“The world is currently obsessed with what computers are capable of, but we’ve lost track of what children are capable of." says LEGO Education Head of Product Experience, Andrew Sliwinski. "AI literacy isn’t just about teaching children how to use the ‘magic box’ of AI models safely. It should be about handing them a screwdriver to take the box apart.”

We’re thrilled to bring LEGO Education Computer Science & AI to your districts and classrooms starting this April. 

Discover more here: http://spkl.io/6048AWdUu

#LEGOeducation #AI #ComputerScience

Here’s a fun, personal post for today… I watched Disneyland Handcrafted last night with a pretty full backpack of personal history.

I’m a former cast member. Time at Disney Music Group. Disney Store HQ. Grew up in Hollywood, going to the parks. And like a lot of us, Walt’s always been a personal hero… not the statue version, the human one. 

The line that stopped me cold was Walt admitting he was scared… and then shrugging it off with, “I’ve been broke four times. I figure I can handle it a fifth.”
That’s not bravado. That’s someone who understands risk but pushes through his fear to realize a vision because he’s lived it. Again and again!

What hit me most wasn’t the nostalgia. It was the work. The pressure. The very real chance this thing could’ve failed publicly and expensively. No safety net. No myth yet. Just people building something by hand because they believed it should exist.

Once you’ve seen that, it’s hard to walk into Disneyland the same way. The magic feels earned. Not manufactured. And from a leadership standpoint, it’s a reminder that trust and conviction beat process charts every time, especially when the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

Now, there are Disney theme parks around the world and dozens of others who have followed Walt’s blueprint. But he paved the way. It was his dream. Walt didn’t wait to feel ready. He just decided it was worth being scared for.

When people wonder why Walt’s my hero, it’s not because he created Mickey Mouse or invented synchronized sound. It’s not because he established the full-length animated feature industry. And it’s not because he build Disneyland. It’s because he dared to dream and risked everything to make those dreams a reality… and it changed the world for the better. He created a legacy of joy, laughter and magic for generations to come.

Thanks, Uncle Walt! ❤️🏰✨

'Disneyland Handcrafted' offers a rare archival look at the creation of Disneyland, highlighting an early chapter in Disney history when Walt Disney and his team transformed Anaheim’s landscape into a groundbreaking destination that redefined themed entertainment. The documentary features the contributions of many innovators that are now Disney Legends and showcases Walt Disney’s forward‑thinking use of television to bring audiences closer to the park’s development. It also reflects the creative legacy upheld by Imagineers, craftspeople, and storytellers who have carried this vision forward for decades.
 
Stream 'Disneyland Handcrafted' now on Disney+.
Learn more about the making of the documentary here: http://di.sn/6049CAL8f

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