The Department of Defense spent months trying to recruit Mailani Veney, but she kept saying no because she didn't think she had the right background. What changed her mind was realizing they didn't need a defense expert. They needed someone who could bring innovative technology and make an impact fast. Critical decisions were still relying on data that people processed manually, and getting the information together could take weeks. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, Ben Tosado sits down with the CEO and founder of Kana Systems to talk about how Kana helps defense teams turn huge amounts of data into faster decisions, why trust matters as much as speed, and what companies should plan for before they start working in the federal space.

Most episodes of Cleared for Takeoff sit down with an operator or a technology leader. This one is different. Omi Diaz-Cooper is CEO of Level 350 Advertising, a platinum certified HubSpot partner who has spent over 21 years studying how B2B aviation buyers actually behave: what pressures they're under, how they justify a purchase, and what risk feels like when a plane is grounded and a part is missing. In this episode, Ben Tosado talks with Omi about why sales, marketing, and IT need to align around the same data and the same definition of success before AI can help at all, what that buyer behavior actually looks like in aviation, and why the companies pulling ahead are the ones that took their data as seriously as their relationships.

Cost pressure and data fragmentation look the same whether you're talking to an aviation company or a manufacturer. But the defense industrial base plays by its own rules. Srinivas Matlapudi, a solutions architect at AWS covering aviation, manufacturing, and the defense industrial base, sees both sides of that line up close. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, Ben Tosado talks with Srinivas about what actually separates companies moving fast on AI from the ones stuck at step one, how AWS's co-funding programs work behind the scenes, and why compliance - not appetite - is the real bottleneck for AI in defense.

Srinivas named four things that separate companies ready for AI from companies that are not: data you can actually find and query, cloud infrastructure, someone who understands both the data and the operations, and leadership genuinely behind it. Only the first two can be bought. The other two are about how the company is put together and who is willing to protect the work while it is still unproven. His line on that: if you expect a return in 90 days, do not start. It takes 12 to 18 months, and the team has to be shielded from revenue pressure the whole way. 

Aviation parts procurement is one of the largest and most manual cost centers in the industry. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, host Ben Tosado, CEO of Deep Blue Cloud Computing, talks with Jon Baker of AAR about Airvoyant, the AI-driven procurement platform launched at MRO Americas. Airvoyant connects airlines and MROs directly to an ecosystem of more than 5,000 suppliers through Aeroxchange, is built natively on AWS, and integrates with Trax and other ERP systems, using AI agents to analyze supplier quotes and generate purchase recommendations. Jon walks through the platform’s origin, the decision to pivot from a marketplace model to an agentic architecture, how the sourcing agent scores recommendations with human-in-the-loop review, and his vision for a lean AI foundry building the roadmap ahead: agents for demand consolidation, vendor optimization and automated negotiation. 

AI is moving faster than anyone can report on it. The useful question is where it’s solving real problems right now.

In the first episode of Cleared for Takeoff, host Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud, sits down with James Barnes, VP of Operations, to separate practical application from speculation across three industries: aviation, where AI augments compliance-heavy work like parts procurement and line maintenance; manufacturing, where AI fails when it’s treated as an IT line item instead of a business outcome; and distribution, where field technicians replace 20 minutes of portal searching with one phone call to an AI agent.

Plus: AI building AI, and why governance stays human.

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Aviation keeps the world connected. Manufacturing builds it. Distribution moves it. And AI is changing how all three operate: faster, smarter, and with higher stakes than any other industry. Cleared for Takeoff is the podcast for the leaders navigating that transformation. Every episode, we sit down with a senior executive from aviation, manufacturing, or distribution to hear their real AI story: the decisions, the challenges, and the outcomes that matter. Hosted by Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud. Follow now so the first episode lands in your feed.