Energy and Manufacturing Business Leaders Gather in Dallas to Examine the Realities of Agentic AI
Energy and manufacturing leaders at USEReady’s Breakfast with Agents event in Dallas, discussing real-world adoption of Agentic AI.
At USEReady’s second Breakfast with Agents event participants identified 3 factors that determine success: data readiness, focused execution, and realized value
In a landscape where AI evolves by the hour, knowledge sharing is not just a courtesy—it is a necessity. Staying ahead requires a collective intelligence that moves as fast as the technology.”
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, April 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Senior executives from Energy, Manufacturing, and Engineering Services are past the question of whether to adopt Agentic AI. The question they are working through now is what it actually takes to make it work inside organizations built on legacy infrastructure, complex supply chains, and zero tolerance for operational error. That was the substance of USEReady's second Breakfast with Agents session, held recently at The Constellation Club in Dallas.— Uday Hegde, Co-founder and CEO, USEReady.
The event started off with a focus on the necessity for a collective knowledge sharing rather than individual conquering. It comprised a panel discussion and a showcase of the solutions co-developed by the USEReady team along with their customers.
“In a landscape where AI evolves by the hour, knowledge sharing is not just a courtesy—it is a necessity. Staying ahead requires a collective intelligence that moves as fast as the technology,” said Uday Hegde, Co-founder and CEO, USEReady.
The panel, hosted by USEReady’s Arun Prabhakara, SVP, Client Partner - Industrials, focused on the ground-level challenges and management-level expectations as leaders in the industry focused on building complex data-transformative solutions and maturing the data foundations within their organizations.
“Achieving global data readiness is not a sprint, but a disciplined marathon. By treating our data products as strategic milestones, we ensure that while we build for the long-term future, we are capturing tangible value and operational efficiency at every mile,” said Madhu Bangalore, Head of Products, Data, Analytics & AI at HF Sinclair.
Participants agreed that data readiness is where most enterprise AI programs fail or succeed and noted it as the most consistently underestimated part of the work. Clean, high-quality, lineage-tracked data is not a precondition that can be addressed after deployment. It is the foundation. Equally important, the organizations making real progress are the ones with active business sponsorship that extends well beyond the initial budget approval and stays in the trenches through implementation.
“Modern data leadership is a dual mandate: delivering the high impact wins the business needs today while securing the foundational integrity it will demand tomorrow. Our role is to ensure stakeholders recognize that these structural investments are the essential catalysts for all future scale,” said Nasir Zaidi, Principal, Ironwood Strategy Group.
Two live AI solution deployments from the Energy and Manufacturing sectors gave the discussion concrete grounding – Contract Intelligence and AskChemille.
The first one was moving from theory to the "how" as Arun Varadharajan, Manager, Data Analytics, HF Sinclair, and Teri Cazorla, Senior Manager, IT Commercial, HF Sinclair, captivated the room with a realistic look at Contract Intelligence. This was not a "visionary slide deck” but a roadmap of how an idea survives the transition to execution. Amit Phatak, SVP, Decision Intelligence, USEReady, brought additional insights into the developed AI models. The audience was locked in because the challenges were relatable, and the solutions were proven.
The second was an AI-powered materials discovery platform built for a global specialty chemicals manufacturer. Tele Fernandes, Director, Digital Innovation, Celanese, and Amit Phatak provided a masterclass on how to move from a "technical launch" to a "market transformation" through the AskChemille initiative.
“Building AskChemille was a masterclass in alignment. By pairing a bold vision with steady leadership sponsorship, we created the space for innovation to take hold. But the true win was seeing our teams embrace the tool; when user adoption meets executive commitment, you do not just build a product—you build a competitive edge,” said Tele Fernandes.
The industries that got through it shared three things: a non-negotiable commitment to data integrity, sustained business sponsorship, and the discipline to treat AI adoption as a multi-year program rather than a project with a launch date.
"Successful AI transformation requires more than adoption — it demands a clear vision anchored in a deep understanding of your strategic landscape. When organizations align their roadmap with their reality, they do not just reach value faster; instead, they turn a complex transition into a competitive advantage," said Venkat Kumaraswami, SVP, Solutions, USEReady.
The Dallas session was the second in USEReady’s Breakfast with Agents series, which launched earlier this year with a Life Sciences event in Princeton, New Jersey. The third session moves to New York City, where the focus shifts to Finance, Procurement, and Operations. Co-hosted with Elementum, the session is designed for leaders wanting to learn about AI working inside real systems and workflows. The format is live demonstrations of agentic AI running inside real enterprise workflows, followed by conversations about what implementation and governance actually look like in practice.
About USEReady
Founded in 2011 in New York, USEReady empowers enterprises with AI-driven data and analytics solutions that enable intelligent, autonomous transformation. As a trusted partner to Fortune 500 organizations, USEReady specializes in Agentic AI, Decision Intelligence, Cloud Data Engineering, and Analytics Modernization. Through its proprietary platforms, frameworks, and accelerators, USEReady delivers measurable business outcomes across industries in an increasingly AI-first world. For more information, visit www.useready.com.
Rajendra Chaudhary
USEReady
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