Modern CTO The Modern CTO of 2025 is Rob Duffy, CTO at HealthEdge!
Jan 8, 2026
Rob Duffy, CTO at HealthEdge, is a tech leader specializing in AI and healthcare technology. He discusses why flashy AI demos often fail to produce real ROI and emphasizes treating AI migration with the same carefully structured approach as cloud migration. Duffy advocates for grassroots adoption at HealthEdge through a pilot program and stresses the importance of leaders using AI tools to drive change. He also highlights the need for cultural shifts in engineering roles and the value of quickly experimenting with multiple AI projects to understand effective strategies.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
AI Migration Equals Cloud Migration
- AI demos are abundant but translating them into scaled production ROI lags behind expectations.
- Migration of work to AI will be as large and complex as past cloud migrations and needs similar rigor.
Run AI Like A Migration Program
- Treat AI adoption like a formal program with processes, waves, and a center of excellence.
- Build tools to catalog work and plan migrations instead of relying on ad-hoc pilots.
Bootstrap Adoption With Grassroots Pilots
- Start grassroots LLM adoption with small cross-functional pilots and visible incentives.
- Create channels, leaderboards, and gamification to spread usage and capture collective learning.