September 2, 2025

By: Kevin Oklobzija

The AI revolution is very much here and, despite trepidation by some, there’s no doubt businesses must either adopt or get left far behind.

Of course, the business world faced a similar crossroads of the unknown four decades ago with the advent of the personal computer.

“When computers first hit, people were like, ‘We don’t have one, but we need one.’ For what? ‘We don’t know, but we better have one. Over time, they got better in understanding how to get value from them. And that’s really where we kind of are with AI. Some People may not understand how it may best suit them, but they know they need to be aware of it and potentially using it.”

John Loury, President, Cause + Effect Strategy

Loury intends to help eliminate some of that apprehension. Cause + Effect Strategy is teaming with the Rochester Business Journal to present Data & AI: Accelerating Adoption and Impact, an afternoon seminar on Sept. 18 at the Genesee Valley Club meant to de-mystify AI. Seating is limited, get your tickets here.

Networking begins at 2 p.m. before keynote speaker Phong Le — president and CEO of global AI and business intelligence leader Strategy — takes the podium at 2:45.

Le will then take part in a panel discussion that also features chief information officers for three area companies: Cindy Donovan of Monro, Inc., John Roman Jr. of The Bonadio Group, and Chris Boebel of Delta Sonic Carwash Systems.

“The idea is to provide the Rochester business a community a forum to have some real talk,” Loury said, “to talk transparently about where companies are in their adoption of AI and allow them to hear from companies their size and larger.

“How is our community approaching AI for business and how exactly can businesses benefit from AI? We have such a wide swath of business sizes in our community. I’d like to think there will be something for everyone at this event.”

The aim of the seminar, Loury said, is to provide:

• Actionable education, not hype;
• Pure benchmarking, being able to hear about what other people are doing and how it may be similar to your needs;
• Ideas on faster and safer adoption;
• Risk and compliance clarity;
• Talent upscaling. “I have this type of people, how can I help to train them to use AI. How are people upscaling their teams to use AI,” he said.

One thing that is very clear: AI is for every business in one way or another.

“It’s no longer something that’s just for the big guys,” Loury said. “These tools and technologies are now available to the mid-market and below, all the more reason why it means a whole lot more to an SMB (small- to medium-sized business) to get this right than to a company that has an R&D budget. If you’re a regional business and you make a sizeable bet on AI, if there isn’t return on investment, that could be very damaging.”

The right implementation begins with data, which is at the heart of AI applications.

“Without data there is no AI, and the better data you have, the better your potential for success in AI,” Loury said. “It’s something we’re obsessed with every day here at Cause + Effect Strategy.

“A lot of what we do at Cause + Effect is to help get companies ready and in position to be successful with AI. We help companies get in position to be able to leverage AI, to adopt it successfully.”

Le will present a big-picture perspective on AI and its uses. His firm produces AI-infused software and also believes strongly in Bitcoin.

“They have a relentless Bitcoin accumulation strategy,” Loury said. “Phong Le is basically running an AI/BI company while being a Bitcoin balance sheet company, and they’re the first.”

As such, Le can provide insight “not only on how the company has infused AI within their primary go-to-market offering, which is their analytics software, there’s this other really interesting elephant in the room; they’re a public company and their balance sheet is complete based on Bitcoin.”

Between the networking periods and panel discussion, attendees very likely will gain insight into how somewhat basic implementation of AI can automate repetitive tasks and make an organization more productive. How are businesses developing their first-use cases, where are businesses finding success and where is it maybe not as effective?

“Where are the processes in a business that have a lot of manual, high-touch events going on?” Loury said. “Where are people reviewing things? This wave of AI is helping us automate tasks, and most business could benefit from some level of automation.”

There can, of course, be growing pains…