Reflections from the AI in Action 2026 Business Summit at the Roux Institute
This morning I sat in a room full of smart people talking about artificial intelligence. The speakers were sharp. The panels were packed. And somewhere between the opening keynote and lunch, a thought crystallized:
We have to stop talking about it and just use it.
The day opened with Lon Cardon, President and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, connecting the dots between AI and drug discovery – real science, real stakes, real urgency. Then the conversation widened. A panel on AI in Society tackled the ethical and human dimensions. Usama Fayyad, Senior Vice Provost of Data and AI Strategy at Northeastern University, put it plainly: rise with AI, not rise to the occasion. The occasion is already here. The AI in Business panel brought in CEOs from Sun Life, IDEXX, and Bernstein Shur – companies that aren’t theorizing. They’re deploying.
And for those still on the sidelines, consider this: every day you delay, you’re accumulating technical debt. The gap between where your systems are and where they need to be widens as your competitors move forward. But here’s the flip side – AI can actually help you dig out. Organizations are using it right now to modernize legacy systems, automate manual processes, and close gaps that have been on the backlog for years. The catch? Rushing in without a strategy creates a whole new layer of debt. Bolt-on AI with no clear architecture, no governance, and no plan is just a different kind of mess.
The throughline? The organizations winning with AI aren’t waiting for perfect conditions. They’re experimenting, iterating, and owning their results.
That last part matters. Because here’s the caution worth carrying:
Know your output before you put it out there.
AI is a tool. A powerful one. But a tool without judgment behind it is just noise with good branding. If you can’t stand behind what it produces, you’re not ready to publish it – or present it, pitch it, or act on it. Review it. Refine it. Own it.
The question for Maine businesses, nonprofits, and leaders isn’t whether we use AI. That ship has sailed.
The question is: are you using it well?