Peggy Smedley Show

Freight rail moves 40% of long-distance goods in the U.S., but the industry's biggest challenge isn't infrastructure, it's intelligence. In this episode of The Peggy Smedley Show, host Peggy Smedley sits down with V. Krishnan, industry advisor for Microsoft manufacturing & mobility, to explore how AI agents and realtime decision tools are reshaping the future of rail.
They discuss:
Why railroads are drowning in data but struggling to act on it
How CSX used AI to transform customer experience
The Rumo case study: cutting lookup times from 4 minutes to 3 seconds
Fuel optimization and how AI can cut costs 3–7% without new infrastructure
Weather analytics, workforce challenges, and the retiring knowledge crisis
Why the next 10% of performance won't come from more track — it'll come from smarter decisions
Whether you're in logistics, supply chain, or enterprise tech, this conversation is a must-listen.







https://aka.ms/RumorailAI
https://aka.ms/CSXrailAI

What does it take to make AI reliable enough to design a bridge? Peggy Smedley sits down with Francois Valois, senior vice president of Bentley Open Applications at Bentley Systems, to unpack the MCP (model context protocol — an open, agnostic standard that connects AI agents to deterministic engineering tools like STAAD and MicroStation ensuring trust, validation, and accountability in engineering workflows.
They explore why generative AI alone needs to be more trustworthy for infrastructure design, how MCP bridges the gap between non-deterministic LLMs (large language models) and precise calculation engines, and what Bentley's open-source strategy means for the future of connected-infrastructure data.
Topics covered:
What MCP is and why Anthropic invented it
Why "90% accurate" isn't acceptable in engineering
How STAAD and MicroStation are now AI-accessible via MCP
The role of structured data (and dark data) in AI workflows
How to start experimenting with AI agents in your firm
The future of the engineer in an AI-augmented world
infrastructure.ai | connectedworld.com | peggysmedleyshow.com

Peggy shares the 7 lies she has been hearing about AI, challenging some common assumptions. She says these narratives have become so common that many of us have stopped questioning them.
She also discusses:
· A pattern that emerges surrounding the 7 lies.
· Where the real opportunity lies and what the biggest threat is.
· What you should do next inside of your own organization.
https://peggysmedleyshow.com

Peggy Smedley and Sebastian Wernicke, author, talk about moving from being data driven to data inspired. He says most data projects don't fail, they do something much worse, they make you very good at staying the same.
They also discuss:
· Your data framework—how to organize it—and the decision framework in your organization.
· How to keep up with the pace of change and look at all of this in relation to the people in the organization.
· Fatal flaws that they will have to think about in order to overcome hurdles.
https://www.datainspired.org

Peggy Smedley and Jeff Ton, author of Uncharted Moments, talk about his leadership background and how he learned to navigate without a map. He says he is a career technologist and most of that was in leadership positions, and the story in the book is about tracing the Lewis and Clark trail.
They also discuss:
· Leadership lessons from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
· How leaders can navigate uncertainty—which translates to today's AI era.
· The concept of pausing and listening and its importance in leadership.
https://jeffreyston.com/