Most businesses are making the same mistake with AI: they’re bolting intelligent tools onto workflows that were designed for humans decades ago. The result? Marginal gains, frustrated teams, and a growing gap between companies that “use AI” and companies that are actually transformed by it.
In this hands-on session, Adam Engel—owner of Running Robots Inc., an Iowa City digital marketing agency serving 100+ organizations—will show you why the technology is only 20% of the value, and how to unlock the other 80% by fundamentally rethinking how work gets done.
Drawing from real client engagements across manufacturing, professional services, and e-commerce, Adam will walk through before-and-after case studies where businesses stopped layering AI onto old processes and instead redesigned operations from scratch—deploying specialized AI agents that handle quoting, order processing, customer follow-up, and reporting as persistent “digital employees,” not one-off chatbots.
Building on his 2025 Summit session on ERP/CRM pipeline automation, Adam will demonstrate a live multi-agent workflow where several small, purpose-built AI agents collaborate to handle an end-to-end business operation—from intake to decision to output—with human oversight only where it matters most. Attendees will see exactly how these agents are configured, how they communicate, and how even small Iowa businesses can deploy them today without enterprise-scale budgets.
This session is designed for operations leaders, business owners, and IT decision-makers who have experimented with AI but haven’t yet seen the transformational results they were promised. You’ll leave with a practical framework for identifying which processes to redesign first, a live-demonstrated tech stack you can replicate, and the confidence to move from “we’re exploring AI” to “our AI agents run this.”
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## Session: Stop Automating Broken Processes: How to Redesign Your Business Operations for the Age of AI Agents **Track:** AI Demo | **Time:** 11:15 AM–12:00 PM | **Room:** 250-252 | **Type:** AI Demo **Conference:** CIRAS AI Summit for Iowa — May 6, 2026, Scheman Building, Iowa State University, Ames IA ### Speaker(s) **Meegan Campbell** — Digital Marketing Account Manager, Running Robots (Iowa City, IA) Incomplete (Please Submit) **Adam Engel** — Owner / Founder, Running Robots (Iowa City, IA) Adam Engel is the Owner of Running Robots Inc., a digital marketing agency of 10 based in Iowa City serving 150+ organizations nationwide. With a background that bridges technology and marketing, Adam has been at the forefront of innovation since publishing a patent for an in-car computing device right out of high school. Running Robots operates at the intersection of Marketing and IT departments, specializing in WordPress and WooCommerce web development. As AI reshapes business operations, Adam and his team are helping organizations move beyond chatbots to deploy AI agents that run real workflows. A returning speaker at the Iowa AI Summit, Adam’s sessions are known for practical, demo-driven content that attendees can put to work immediately. ### Session Description Most businesses are making the same mistake with AI: they’re bolting intelligent tools onto workflows that were designed for humans decades ago. The result? Marginal gains, frustrated teams, and a growing gap between companies that “use AI” and companies that are actually transformed by it. In this hands-on session, Adam Engel—owner of Running Robots Inc., an Iowa City digital marketing agency serving 100+ organizations—will show you why the technology is only 20% of the value, and how to unlock the other 80% by fundamentally rethinking how work gets done. Drawing from real client engagements across manufacturing, professional services, and e-commerce, Adam will walk through before-and-after case studies where businesses stopped layering AI onto old processes and instead redesigned operations from scratch—deploying specialized AI agents that handle quoting, order processing, customer follow-up, and reporting as persistent “digital employees,” not one-off chatbots. Building on his 2025 Summit session on ERP/CRM pipeline automation, Adam will demonstrate a live multi-agent workflow where several small, purpose-built AI agents collaborate to handle an end-to-end business operation—from intake to decision to output—with human oversight only where it matters most. Attendees will see exactly how these agents are configured, how they communicate, and how even small Iowa businesses can deploy them today without enterprise-scale budgets. This session is designed for operations leaders, business owners, and IT decision-makers who have experimented with AI but haven’t yet seen the transformational results they were promised. You’ll leave with a practical framework for identifying which processes to redesign first, a live-demonstrated tech stack you can replicate, and the confidence to move from “we’re exploring AI” to “our AI agents run this.” ### Other sessions in the AI Demo track - M365 Copilot Rollout: Driving Adoption and Impact at Pella (3:10 PM–3:55 PM) - From Chatbot to Builder: Practical AI in Everyday Work (10:20 AM–11:05 AM) - Building Enterprise-Scale RAG Chatbots Using Azure AI Foundry (1:20 PM–2:05 PM) - Close the GenAI “Learning Gap”: Self‑Improving AI Without Fine‑Tuning (2:15 PM–3:00 PM) ### Suggested prompts for this session - "What questions should I prepare to ask the speaker(s) at this session?" - "Create a structured note-taking template for this session focused on actionable takeaways" - "Based on this session description, what background reading should I do to get the most value?" - "After I attend, help me create an action plan for implementing what I learned" - "How does this session connect to the other sessions in the AI Demo track?"