BAIS - 2026

Beyond the Pilot: Delivering AI & Analytics at Scale

Friday, October 2nd, 2026

Registration Fee: $75

Enjoy lunch and later hors d’oeuvres with complimentary wine and beer.

FREE registration for current University of Akron students, faculty, and staff.

Current University of Akron students who register in advance will be able to enter a drawing at the Summit to win valuable prizes!

Venue: Grand Ballroom, Jean Hower Taber Student Union, The University of Akron (In-person Only)

Parking: Provided; information will be sent to registrants

The rapid advancement of analytics and AI, including machine learning and generative AI, continues to reshape how organizations operate, compete, and create value. In 2025, organizations across every industry launched pilots and proofs of concept that showed real potential. Now the challenge is to scale, sustain, and deliver lasting impact. For many, that remains the hardest part.

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Program

Summit Topics

Keynote: AI-Powered Policy Endorsement Processing and Enabling Governance

Brian Bemiller (Head, AI Product Delivery) and Don Hurrle (Head of GenAI and Digital Product Management - Standard Lines), Westfield Insurance

At Westfield Insurance, requests for changes to coverage on small business policies are sent by insurance agents to a centralized email inbox. Those requests are routed to a mix of internal employees and contract humans who then process the transactions on internal Westfield systems. Westfield is now building a set of AI agents capable of processing a significant subset of those policy change transactions, specifically those processed by contract resources today. This work will ultimately allow for a reduction in contract FTE and an eventual 7 figure cost savings. As part of this work, the team partnered with Westfield’s internal governance review board to identify and mitigate a set of legal, compliance and security related risks. In this discussion, the Westfield team will share more about their technical approach, the impact, and the key governance risks raised and mitigated.

From Whisper to Workflow: Scaling Ambient AI Documentation Across 25,000+ Healthcare Facilities

Eric Grover (CTO), Net Health

AI tools that listen to patient visits and draft clinical notes are generating enormous excitement in healthcare. The promise is real, but so is the gap between a compelling demo and a system that works reliably across thousands of facilities. At Net Health, we serve over 25,000 post-acute and specialty care facilities in rehabilitation therapy, wound care, and occupational health. Getting ambient documentation into production at that scale forced us to rethink how we evaluate AI models, how we manage costs when volume grows, how we earn the trust of clinicians who are being asked to change how they work, and what governance means when AI is generating legal medical records from patient conversations.

This talk follows the full unvarnished journey. We made model choices we later reversed. We designed a rollout sequence that had to be scrapped and rebuilt. We discovered that pricing and entitlement management were harder problems than the AI itself. And we learned that scaling required organizational changes across engineering, product, clinical, and security teams that were at least as important as the technology decisions.

The 23% Problem: What Failed AI Search Queries Reveal About Your Real Data Gaps

Jennie Zamberlan (President & CEO), and Travis Warholic (Senior Consultant), Avantia

When a global semiconductor manufacturer launched an AI-powered search assistant on its public website, the goal was straightforward: help engineers find RF and semiconductor products faster. The architecture was textbook for 2026. A multi-agent RAG system on Azure, with one agent coordinating and another searching structured product data, augmented by web search for content not in the knowledge base, all fronted by a Python API behind the public web tier for security.

Getting it live was the easy part.

This talk walks through what happened next: the messy, instructive middle ground between "we shipped a pilot" and "we're operating at scale." We'll share concrete patterns from analyzing thousands of real user queries each week including a stubborn 23% not-found rate on part-number lookups, an overly aggressive out-of-scope filter that rejected legitimate domain terms, and the surprising volume of users searching for competitor part numbers hoping for a cross-reference. We'll also cover the operational discipline that made these findings actionable: a weekly query-analysis loop that turns raw usage logs into a prioritized backlog of model, data, and UX improvements.

Attendees will leave with a candid view of what production RAG actually looks like in week 40, not week 1. We'll look at which problems got smaller with tuning, which ones turned out to be data problems wearing AI clothing, and which architectural decisions we'd make differently. If you've shipped an AI pilot and are wondering what comes after the demo applause, this session is for you.

Speaker Bios

Keynote: AI-Powered Policy Endorsement Processing and Enabling Governance

Brian Bemiller (Head, AI Product Delivery), Westfield Insurance

Brian Bemiller is a venture builder and product leader with more than two decades of experience applying emerging technologies to practical business challenges. He previously worked with 1848 Ventures, where he helped build and launch B2B SaaS companies that used AI to address the biggest challenges facing small and medium-sized businesses across the US. His experience includes AI and machine-learning applications in demand forecasting, pricing optimization, e-commerce conversion, and operational decision-making.

Brian’s current role is at Westfield Insurance, where he leads a team developing internal-facing AI products designed to reduce expense, increase capacity for written premium, and enable faster, higher-quality decisions. He brings a pragmatic, outcomes-focused perspective to AI, emphasizing useful products, objectively measurable value, and responsible adoption.

Don Hurrle (Head of GenAI and Digital Product Management - Standard Lines), Westfield Insurance

Don Hurrle is the Head of Gen AI and Digital Product Management at Westfield for Standard Lines. Don has over 25 years of technology expertise in both technical and leadership roles. His experience includes leadership roles across nearly all facets of IT including application development, portfolio management, infrastructure and operations. Don's career journey has been highlighted with being at the forefront of numerous transformations using his unique, creative approaches for creating value through technology, process, and people.

Don's most current focus has been on advancing the Gen AI capability at Westfield by leading it through the start up phase through the current hub-and-spoke model The result is a functioning governance team, a driving change management team, an engaged employee base, and of course development teams aimed at bringing value in terms of business efficiency and expense management using Gen AI tech. His passion for helping to unlock high-performing teams and individuals is part of his secret sauce for success.

From Whisper to Workflow: Scaling Ambient AI Documentation Across 25,000+ Healthcare Facilities

Eric Grover (CTO), Net Health

For over 28 years, Eric has developed software across a variety of industries, including healthcare. He served as an Enterprise Architect for University Hospitals in Cleveland, and for the decade prior to joining Net Health, worked as a Principal Architect guiding large enterprises through their application modernization efforts.

In his current role, Eric serves as Net Health's chief architect and leads the software engineering organization, which includes all of the product development teams across Net Health's products. He is driving the company's AI transformation, embedding AI both into Net Health's products and into how the engineering organization builds software. That work spans ambient clinical documentation, AI-assisted software development across the delivery lifecycle, and enterprise-wide adoption of AI tooling to accelerate engineering and improve outcomes for the post-acute and specialty care providers Net Health serves.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The 23% Problem: What Failed AI Search Queries Reveal About Your Real Data Gaps

Jennie Zamberlan (President & CEO), Avantia

Jennie Zamberlan is a serial entrepreneur who has built three successful information technology companies. Her current firm, Avantia, Inc., was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. Avantia provides information technology consulting services and builds custom application software for clients nationwide. Throughout her career, Jennie has stayed at the forefront of the long arc of technology change, and today that means helping clients achieve real business benefit from the appropriate application of AI agentic technology. Jennie's lifelong passion is building computer software that makes a difference for her clients, while providing an environment for her employees to achieve their potential. Jennie is an enthusiastic supporter of Cleveland, Ohio and is committed to creating sustainable jobs in "her own backyard." Jennie has a long history of serving on Boards of academic, non-profit and for-profit companies and organizations.

Travis Warholic (Senior Consultant), Avantia

Travis Warholic is Delivery Lead at Avantia, Inc., an IT consultancy that helps organizations build custom software solutions. Travis has moved from software architect into a role that sits at the intersection of client strategy, technical oversight, and delivery accountability. His recent work has focused on bringing AI and RAG-based solutions into production for real users, including the case study at the center of this session. Travis holds a B.S. from Ashland University and is an active member of the Society of Information Management (SIM) Cleveland chapter. He lives in Green, Ohio with his young family.

Panelist Bios

Dr. Peggy Coyne (Manager of IS Collaboration Services), The J.M. Smucker Company

Dr. Peggy Coyne is a technology leader, educator, and practitioner-scholar with experience across the insurance, supply chain, software, consulting, and consumer goods industries. She currently serves as Manager of IS Collaboration Services at The J.M. Smucker Company, where she leads enterprise collaboration, Microsoft 365 governance, user enablement, and technology adoption initiatives.

Dr. Coyne completed her Doctor of Education at Kent State University, where her research focused on building organizational capability for generative AI adoption through an AI Innovation Champion Program. Her work bridges research and practice, with a focus on responsible AI implementation, change management, data governance, and helping employees translate emerging technologies into meaningful business value.

Throughout her career, Dr. Coyne has also developed and delivered corporate education programs that help professionals adopt new technologies, improve business processes, and lead organizational change. In addition to her corporate leadership experience, she has served as an adjunct instructor at The University of Akron, teaching in the areas of business information systems and AI project management.

Dr. Coyne is passionate about creating practical, interactive learning experiences that help professionals understand not only what emerging technologies can do, but how to implement them effectively, ethically, and sustainably within their organizations.

Abdou Ayoub (Founder, Managing Director), Paragon Shift

Abdou Ayoub is the founder and Managing Director of Paragon Shift, where he has spent 15 years advising CDOs, CEOs, and executive teams on data modernization, AI strategy, and organizational design across financial services, healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing. Before founding Paragon Shift, he was a Manager at Deloitte Consulting, where he led ERP implementations and IT strategy engagements for global manufacturing clients. He also serves as a startup strategy coach in Lebanon through Smart ESA. Paragon Shift holds the Microsoft Solutions Partner designation for Azure Data & AI.

Nicholas Searle (Founder), Black Elm

Nicholas Searle is the Founder of Black Elm, a consulting firm focused on delivering business outcomes through data and AI. The firm specializes in helping organizations move from strategy to execution by aligning modern data platforms, architecture, and machine learning initiatives directly to measurable ROI. With a background in application development, data engineering, and AI architecture, he has led large-scale digital modernization efforts across industries including manufacturing, finance, and healthcare. Black Elm translates the executive mandate into implementation and focuses on returning ROI through technology.

Moderator Bios

Susan Lowry (President Strategic Services), SquareOne Consulting

Susan Burton Lowry is President Strategic Services, SquareOne Consulting, chair of the CITA Advisory Board, and adjunct faculty member in the College of Business. Susan is a senior strategist with over 20 years of experience spanning internet marketing, enterprise platforms, and digital strategy across industries including CPG, aerospace, automotive, and utilities. She has led digital initiatives for Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits, managed a Top 400 e-commerce site with full P&L responsibility, and currently provides consulting in SEO, content strategy, social media, and analytics.

Anthony Jakab (Senior Director of Sales)

Anthony Jakab has 12-year+ experience as Senior Director of Sales in the telecommunication space. He is a member of the CITA Advisory Board, member of the College of Business adjunct faculty, and CoB MS graduate. He brings experience from previous roles at GoTo, NICE inContact and Diebold.

Company Sponsorships

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Summit Sponsor: $10,000

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Premier Sponsor: $5,000

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• 2 Vendor Display Tables
• Medium logo featured prominently throughout event and on social media
• Company is verbally recognized throughout the event

Gold Sponsor: $2,500

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Blue Sponsor: $1,000

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Should you have questions, please contact Melissa Shelton, mshelton@uakron.edu or 330-972-4520.

Additional Sponsorship Registration Notes: 

1. Registration is now separate from sponsorship. To register your attendance, and for your guests at your sponsored tables to register, please use the REGISTER NOW button above. 
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About CITA

The Center for Information Technologies and Analytics (CITA) is a multi–disciplinary Center within the College of Business. CITA was created in 2000 with the mission to teach students and develop faculty in the principles and practices of the related disciplines of Information Technology. CITA accomplishes its mission by providing scholarships, mentoring, internships & co-op opportunities to students in the information systems and business analytics disciplines, providing resources to conduct research to faculty, and conducting several outreach activities that promote IT and analytics among local companies.

CITA is made up of an advisory board of Information Technology leaders from the Northeast Ohio region and the College of Business faculty, staff and students. For further information, visit the Center for Information Technologies and Analytics (CITA) website.

Previous Events

• 2025 - AI and Analytics in Action
• 2024 - Data and Analytics Literacy: The Race to Transformation
• 2023 - Cultivating Your Intelligent Data Ecosystem
• 2022 - Analytics Everywhere
• 2021 - Advancing the Data-Driven Organization
• 2020 - Data to Decisions
• 2019 - Driving Value with Business Analytics: A 360° Perspective
• 2018 - Data Analytics in Your Business DNA