How Traditional Businesses Should Actually Adopt AI Without Breaking Operations | Into the Gnar EP.7

Not sure if your team is actually ready for AI? We built a free 2-minute assessment that gives you a straight answer → ai-assessment.thegnar.com/ If you run a profitable business with spreadsheets everywhere, an ERP nobody likes, and critical knowledge living in three people’s heads, this one’s for you. We’ve seen this company before. Orders come in by phone. Then email. Somehow, still fax. Pricing rules live in people’s heads. Inventory is technically tracked, but everyone has their own workaround. And Dave, the part-time IT guy, is doing his best. This week, Mike and Nick use a fictional $75 million industrial distributor to talk through what AI adoption looks like in a real operating business. Not the keynote version. The messy version. They get into vertical AI, why some industry-specific tools are useful and some are just expensive wrappers, and why ROI is harder to measure than most vendors want to admit. They also talk about governance, but not just who can access which model. The bigger problem is what gets created once everyone in the company starts building their own little AI tool. We’ve made that mess before. It compounds fast. The episode moves through order entry, quoting, pricing, inventory, legacy ERPs, and the uncomfortable build-versus-buy calls operators have to make before a “small AI project” turns into software nobody owns. And the main point is simple: before you build anything, understand the business. Find the leaks. Clean the data. Map the work. Talk to the person who knows how the weird process actually works. In this episode, we cover: Why vertical AI is getting more interesting for traditional businesses How to spot tools that look useful but won’t hold up Why AI ROI dies when nobody owns the workflow Where order entry automation can save real money How AI can help with quoting without removing human judgment Why replacing the ERP is usually the wrong first move How to decide when to buy, connect, or build Why “earn the complexity” is becoming a serious operating rule If you run a boring, profitable business and you’ve been wondering where AI should actually start, start here. New episodes every other Monday. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Recap: What We Learned From Johnny-O 02:24 The AI Teardown Game: How Operators Should Think About AI 04:04 Vertical AI Is Coming for Traditional Software 05:12 Vertical AI vs. Generic SaaS: When Industry-Specific Tools Win 12:04 The AI Agents ROI Problem Most Companies Aren’t Measuring 16:15 AI Governance: The Risk Beyond Access Control 22:01 Meridian Supply: AI Teardown of a $75M Industrial Distributor 23:10 Start With Discovery Before Buying AI Tools 27:06 Automating Order Intake Across Phone, Email, and Fax 32:14 How AI Can Improve Quoting, Pricing, and Sales Rep Training 35:04 Legacy ERP Systems, Inventory Forecasting, and Dead Stock 38:04 Build vs. Buy: How to Avoid Becoming an Accidental Software Company 40:44 The Big Takeaway: Find the Leaks, Clean the Data, Own What You Ship 41:50 AI for Operators Events and Next Episode Preview