How Caterpillar is using AI to augment human intelligence—and optimize its supply chain
Jamie Engstrom has a winning personal motto: “We reserve the right to work smarter tomorrow”—shorthand for her IT organization’s commitment to keep learning as AI advances and Caterpillar’s business evolves. As CIO and SVP, Engstrom leads a global IT team of more than 2,200 professionals across 28 countries. Though Caterpillar has used AI in some capacity for three decades, Engstrom now drives…
Jamie Engstrom, Caterpillar's Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, leads a global IT team of over 2,200 professionals in 28 countries. Caterpillar has been using AI for three decades, but Engstrom now focuses on its application for advanced analytics, automation, and supply chain optimization. Her holistic approach involves considering the digital thread from demand planning to manufacturing and operations.
She has created the IT AI Center of Excellence, partnered with Accenture and Snowflake, and developed an internal data assistant on a Snowflake-based enterprise data foundation. This assistant allows employees to query trusted company data and receive answers within seconds. In 2026, Caterpillar won Snowflake's AI Innovator Award for the second consecutive year for this work.
Engstrom advocates for an additive approach to AI, emphasizing augmentation of human intelligence by automating mundane tasks. She encourages safe experimentation, education on the "art of the possible," and building trust in AI processes, guardrails, access, and governance. Trust in the underlying data is also crucial, as it ensures the AI outputs are productive and meaningful, combating the perception of AI as a threat to jobs.
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