The Zero100 Mailbag: Who Owns AI's Bad Calls – and What’s Happening to Entry-Level Jobs?

Is Your Agentic Rollout Creating New Cybersecurity Risks?

When Zero100 surveyed COOs, cybersecurity breaches emerged as the #1 business continuity risk for 2026, outranking geopolitics and tariffs. The driving force behind this anxiety? The rapid rise of agentic AI. Unlike traditional software, these autonomous systems learn and evolve through use, introducing a massive new risk landscape. This week, Senior Director, Research & Advisory Justin Gillebo sits down with VP, Research & Advisory Geraint John and Chief Research Officer Kevin O’Marah to unpack why agentic workflows require continuous operational governance, and how to balance fast-paced citizen innovation with strict guardrails before your supply chain misfires.

From Taiwan to Tariffs: How Supply Chain Leaders Are Thinking About Risk

Zero100 surveyed 100 supply chain leaders to find out how they're thinking about risk, resilience, and global trade. 85% say geopolitical chaos is wrecking their operations. Cybersecurity is a top-three threat. 55% say low-cost sourcing is dead. Nearly half think China will move on Taiwan by 2030. But while most companies are stuck firefighting each new crisis, a small group of leaders is doing something fundamentally different: they're treating resilience not as insurance, but as a competitive advantage. This week, Senior Director, Research & Advisory Justin Gillebo sits down with VP, Research & Advisory Geraint John and Chief Research Officer Kevin O'Marah to unpack the findings, break down the concrete plays top performers are running, and explain why resilience is no longer about defense alone.

IT vs Ops: Who Really Owns AI?

As coding becomes democratized, who actually owns AI implementation: operations or IT? The answer isn't either/or. This week, VPs, Research & Advisory Lauren Acoba and Kelly Coutinho, and Senior Research Analyst Jalen Thibou, tackle the difference between vibe coding prototypes and running production-scale code across geographies with proper security. They expose the hidden language barrier causing pilots to falter, reveal the specific ownership boundaries needed to scale, and explain why both roles are expanding – not competing – in ways most leaders haven't considered.

Is SynBio Manufacturing's Next Frontier?

Synthetic biology promises to revolutionize manufacturing, growing materials in fermentation tanks instead of relying on traditional industrial or agricultural sources. But can it scale? Zero100 Chief Content Officer Matt Davis sits down with Mathias Cousin, Managing Director at Monitor Deloitte and a SynBio veteran, to find out. Mathias reveals why manufacturing economics, not science, determines who survives, how AI is compressing design cycles from years to months, and why the biggest breakthroughs may come from replacing cows, not crude oil. With real-world examples, he shows what supply chain leaders need to understand as biological manufacturing moves from the lab to industrial reality.

What Will Humans Do When 60% of Work Is Automated?

Zero100 predicts that by 2030, 60% of supply chain’s functional activities will shift to automated or autonomous execution. But what happens to the workers in that equation? This week on the podcast, Zero100’s Matt Davis, Caroline Chumakov, and Lauren Acoba deliver the honest answer. Drawing from analyses of 413 solution providers and over a million job descriptions, they reveal how the division of labor is already shifting, explore and what work will remain distinctly human as data tasks move to automation and strategic judgment, supplier relationships, and systems thinking become the competitive advantage. With examples from BMW’s frontline upskilling programs and Fortune 100 adoption strategies, they show how winning companies bring entire workforces along this journey.