Zachary Kvale

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…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now. On Monday’s episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton and Greg White discuss the U.S. Bank 2021 Q2 Freight Payment Index with Bobby Holland of U.S. Bank & John Janson with Sanmar. On This Week in Business History, Kelly Barner shares the best and most interesting bits of historical business trivia, all occurring during the first week in August. We also released an episode of Supply Chain Now en Español with Enrique Alvarez and Demo Perez featuring Felisa Preciado. On Tuesday we released another Logistics With Purpose episode! Hosts Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter welcomed Alice Brown with GoodSteps to the show. Another show that was in the mix this week was TECHquila Sunrise with Greg White. This is the 2nd part of a great conversation with RateLinx CEO Shannon Vaillancourt, where they discussed 3 Keys to turn supply chain visibility into action. On Wednesday, Tim Nelson with Hope for Justice joined Scott Luton and Greg White. They discussed their noble efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking in the supply chain throughout the world. On Thursday, we released…