Graham Smith

Did you catch all the episodes from Supply Chain Now this week? If not, get a quick summary and listen here! We added TWO additional episodes this week starting on Saturday, July 25th. We continued our Logistics with Purpose series, sponsored by Vector Global Logistics, and welcomed Kevin Carvajal with Salesian Missions. Supply Chain Now · “Logistics with Purpose: Kevin Carvajal with Salesian Missions”     On Sunday, we featured our recent webinar, “Stand Up & Sound Off: A Conversation About Race in Industry,” and welcomed panelists Dyci Sfregola and David Burton to Supply Chain Now.   Supply Chain Now · “Stand Up & Sound Off: A Conversation About Race in Industry”     We featured another great episode in This Week in Business History on Monday, where Scott looks back at some of the biggest historical events in business history for the week ahead. This week, he spoke about the past, present, and future of the cannabis industry.   Supply Chain Now · “This Week in Business History for July 27th: The Past, Present, & Future of the Cannabis Industry”     Then on Tuesday, we shared our live-stream with Jeff Cashman of GreyOrange with our podcast audience, as…

At Manifest 2026, Scott Luton spent time with Josh Gruenstein, Co-Founder and CEO of Tutor Intelligence, to talk about a future that’s no longer theoretical: AI-powered robot workers operating inside America’s warehouses and factories. And this isn’t a science experiment. It’s already happening.   From MIT to the Warehouse Floor Gruenstein and his team came out of MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab with a bold idea: build AI-powered robot workers that can handle the manual labor people don’t want to do. “We build physical robots,” Gruenstein explained. “We build AI models that enable robots to perceive their environments, and then we deploy those robots into factories and warehouses across the United States to do manual labor that people don’t want to do.” Unlike traditional automation projects that require massive capital outlays, Tutor Intelligence operates on a robots-as-a-service model. Companies can engage a Tutor robot for roughly $14–$18 an hour, creating a flexible, scalable path to automation without multimillion-dollar implementation risk.   Automation Isn’t New. AI Is Changing the Playbook. When asked about dominant supply chain themes, Gruenstein pointed to a constant drumbeat: automation. But 2026 feels different. “Automation is obviously a constant theme,” he said. “What really seems different…