Keynote will explore why becoming an AI enterprise starts with closing the distance between AI spend and the outcomes it funds

AI spending is showing up in enterprise budgets, but its impact on business priorities is harder to see. At this year's Reuters Momentum AI Conference, Tempo Software's Chief Product Officer Kevin Nanney will deliver a keynote speech that explores how leaders can close that distance between AI spend and the outcomes it funds.

Every enterprise is now operating under the same instruction: adopt AI across the business, or fall behind the competitors already doing it. A second instruction lands right behind the first: govern the spend, or lose the authority to keep funding it. Nanney's keynote argues that resolving both at once, not choosing between them, is what separates enterprises becoming AI enterprises in practice from the ones still writing the strategy deck.

Drawing on his own experience leading product at Tempo, Nanney, who has more than 20 years of product leadership experience, will address an audience of enterprise leaders who are shaping AI strategy, governance, transformation, and growth. Nanney will share how two initiatives competing for the same engineering capacity told very different stories beneath the surface, and why an apparent efficiency problem prompted a change in measurement rather than a budget cut. He will outline practical steps for identifying strategic drift during planning, while there is still time to course correct, and what it takes to run an AI enterprise rather than just declare one.

The keynote lays out the three-part method Nanney argues closes that distance and turns the mandate to become an AI enterprise into an operating model, not just a goal. First, know what AI agents are doing: what they cost, what they deliver, and how they move strategic initiatives forward. Second, replace fragmented AI adoption with one governed operating model for human and agentic work, so every piece of work ties back to strategy. Third, move from static planning cycles to real-time, adaptive planning that surfaces drift early and recommends a course correction the same day it appears, not six weeks and a review cycle later. Nanney will close with practical starting points for leaders under pressure to show results now, including staying inside the tools their teams already use rather than forcing a migration.

Nanney's keynote, “Spend Is Tracked. Outcomes Are Not. The AI Accountability Distance Nobody Has Closed,” is slated for Thursday, Sept. 24 at 4:20 p.m. CT, on the conference's mainstage.

Tempo's recently released 2026 State of AI in Portfolio Management report found that 91% of surveyed organizations are piloting or actively using AI in project delivery, yet only 26% actively use it to prioritize or reprioritize work. That distance between AI adoption and AI-informed decision-making shows that using AI, by itself, is not a competitive advantage, and it's why continuous coordination of strategy, investment, and execution, with the ability to see drift and make real-time course corrections across human-agentic workforces, matters most for enterprise leaders navigating AI ROI. The mandate to adopt AI is already being met. The mandate to prove it is not.

Nanney's mainstage presentation comes just days after Tempo's launch of Loop, the AI-native Intelligent Portfolio Orchestration platform that helps enterprises move from fragmented AI adoption to an enterprise AI operating model for coordinating human and AI work. Loop gives leaders a continuously updated portfolio view of time, capacity, cost and execution across the systems their teams already use, and once a leader approves a recommendation, applies the change directly into enterprise-grade work systems such as Jira, Azure DevOps with Linear, and others to follow. Tempo also recently launched Workforce Intelligence, the first Atlassian Marketplace app to automatically attribute AI activity directly to Jira work items, epics, and initiatives.

In advance of the conference, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, Tempo hosted an after-hours event with the team for drinks and conversation in one of Austin's distinctive venues in the warehouse district. Attendees were able to meet Tempo's leadership, product, and sales teams.

The 2026 Reuters' AI Momentum Conference, held in Austin Sept. 24-26, is North America's premier forum for enterprise AI. The conference convenes leaders responsible for making AI deliver real business value and articulating the ROI of AI investment. More than 500 senior executives are slated to attend the two-day event.

Explore Loop at tempo.io/loop to see how it fits your current tools. Workforce Intelligence is also available in Atlassian Marketplace.

About Tempo

Tempo Software is the leader in Intelligent Portfolio Orchestration, offering a next-generation platform for organizations to govern and measure human-AI teams. Tempo's suite of award-winning solutions gives planning and portfolio leaders the insights they need to connect strategy, investment, people, and delivery. Trusted by 30,000+ customers, including Cisco, Airbus, and Oracle, and 350+ global solution partners, Tempo is a leading partner in the Atlassian ecosystem. Discover more at Tempo.io.

About Kevin Nanney

Chief Product Officer Kevin Nanney leads product strategy and innovation across Tempo's portfolio. A seasoned product and GTM executive, Kevin has more than two decades of experience building and scaling enterprise SaaS products across work management, IT, and employee experience. His leadership experience spans prior roles at Iron Mountain, Workiva, and includes nearly eight years at ServiceNow.

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Nanney's keynote, “Spend Is Tracked. Outcomes Are Not. The AI Accountability Distance Nobody Has Closed,” is slated for Thursday, Sept. 24 at 4:20 p.m. CT, on the conference's mainstage.