Name: AI in Product: Panel Discussion: What It’s Really Like to Run an AI Sprint™
Start: 2025-11-20T14:00:00-06:00
End: 2025-11-20T16:00:00-06:00
Location: Lab651

**Overview**
At Blank Metal, we use AI Sprints™ to help organizations move fast from uncertainty to clarity. We use the methodology to validate whether a specific use case for AI is desirable, viable, and feasible - the three lenses of good product development. We have been able to compress what can take months of research and validation into 10 days by combining expert engineering, hands-on experimentation, and daily collaboration with client teams.

Each sprint starts with a problem statement: a focused question about where AI could make a measurable impact. Then we work side by side with the client’s engineers, designers, and leaders through daily standups, demos, and technical validation. In this panel discussion, we will share some of the things we’ve learned along the way, some of the adjustments we have had to make to improve the process, and share ideas about working in this fast, intensive approach with clients.

**Agenda**

* 2:00pm - 2:30pm: Arrival and networking
* 2:30pm - 2:45pm: Announcements and round-room introductions
* 2:45pm - 3:30pm: Featured panel, *Blank Metal Panel Discussion: What It’s Really Like to Run an AI Sprint™*
* 3:30pm - 4:00pm: Your impromptu discussion topics
* 4:00pm onwards: Continued networking at Monster Brewing

**Meet Our Featured Panelists**
**[Elli Rader, CGO](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellirader/)**
Elli Rader is the Chief Growth Officer at Blank Metal. A veteran of the digital innovation space and former GoKart Labs executive, she brings 15+ years of experience building and scaling digital product practices, having worked with hundreds of clients across healthcare, financial services, and education sectors. Prior to co-founding Blank Metal, she served as a Partner in West Monroe's Product Experience & Engineering Lab following the firm's acquisition of GoKart Labs, where she led revenue and brand initiatives while championing user-centered design and helping enterprises navigate digital transformation. Known for her exceptional relationship-building and culture development skills, she plays a crucial role in Blank Metal's partner ecosystem and mission to revolutionize how enterprises implement AI, making the company a center of AI influence in the Midwest.

**[Eric Johnson, CTO](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericcj/)**
Eric serves as Chief Technology Officer at Blank Metal, where he architects the technical foundation that powers the company’s innovative AI solutions. With deep expertise in AI systems design and implementation, Eric leads the technical strategy and oversees a specialized team of data scientists and AI engineers dedicated to building transformative products for clients. His extensive experience spans integrating advanced AI capabilities into practical business applications, ensuring that Blank Metal’s technical solutions are both cutting-edge and production-ready.
Eric is known for maintaining Blank Metal’s technical edge while keeping a keen focus on real-world implementation challenges. His leadership ensures the delivery of AI solutions that work reliably in complex environments and adapt intelligently to evolving client needs. By combining technical vision with a pragmatic approach, Eric helps organizations leverage AI to create significant business value and solve real-world problems⁠.

**[Mike Osborne, AI Engineer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-osborne-cs/)**
Mike Osborne is a Senior AI Engineer with 3+ of experience designing and deploying advanced AI solutions that deliver measurable impact. He has built specialized platforms such as a high-volume AI chat system serving 2,000 monthly users and supporting tens of thousands of chats each month, as well as an AI-driven consulting tool that reduced a week-long mergers and acquisitions discovery process to ten minutes.
Mike focuses on using AI for its strengths—combining it with custom software or integrating it into existing systems where it has the biggest impact. He has advised numerous clients on AI strategy and implementation, bringing a pragmatic perspective that balances innovation with operational realities and consistently helps teams work faster, smarter, and at scale.

**[Eric Ness, AI Engineer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericnessdata/)**
Eric Ness is a Minneapolis-based principal machine learning engineer who designs and ships production-grade AI systems and data products end to end, from model development through scalable deployment and monitoring. He has led architecture and implementation of high-impact platforms, including FastAPI- and Kafka-based model deployment frameworks, Azure ML– and Airflow-powered MLOps pipelines, and real-time services that quote hundreds of millions of dollars in shipments annually on Docker and Kubernetes. His track record includes cutting prediction error by 50% on sparse-lane cost models influencing tens of millions in quotes, operationalizing an automatic order acceptance system processing thousands of orders per day, and building recommender microservices on AWS Lambda with live integrations to transactional sources.
Earlier roles spanning senior machine learning engineering and data science strengthened his product instincts and platform rigor, while foundation work in BI and data engineering honed his ability to integrate heterogeneous data and optimize performance at scale. He holds a degree from Northwestern University and stays current with advanced study across deep learning, MLOps, and data engineering, including a Udacity Deep Learning Nanodegree and specialized training in Spark, pandas, and linear algebra.

**Sponsors**
This event is sponsored by [Lab651](https://lab651.com/) & [Recursive Awesome](https://recursiveawesome.com/)

**Organizers**
This event is part of the community interest groups series at Applied AI, where community members power sessions for niche interest areas through the Applied AI platform.

This event is organized and hosted by [Cameron Gross](https://www.linkedin.com/in/camerongross/), [John DeBauche](https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndebauche/), and [Beth-Alison Berggren](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethalisonb/).

Emily McCarthy

Cam Gross

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Justin Grammens

Beth-Alison Berggren

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