AI at the Edge: What's Working for Frontline Workers (and What's Not) | Justin Griffith, StayLinked

AI is supposed to transform the frontline. But in warehouses, hospitals, and retail stores, the math doesn't always work.Brett Cooper talks with Justin Griffith, CTO of StayLinked, about what AI at the edge actually looks like when it hits real operations. Justin's team has spent over a decade studying technology adoption in environments that run on terminal emulation built in 1969 and still power 70% of the world's warehouses.They cover the three main edge AI use cases: vision, voice, and workflow automation, and why each one hits a different wall. Vision AI drains batteries too fast for full-shift use. Voice AI adds inference latency that warehouse workers can't afford. And workflow automation requires WMS integrations that take years and carry existential risk.Justin frames the core problem: AI right now is a solution in search of a problem. For the middle 80% of the market (i.e. companies that need technology to work and need their investment to see a return) AI hasn't cleared the barrier of viability yet. The top 10% can afford to experiment. The bottom 10% can't afford to move. Everyone else is stuck calculating whether the juice is worth the squeeze.They also dig into data ownership, the OEM hardware arms race, why memory prices have tripled, and what happens when a robotics company turns out to be a data company in disguise.