Generac CIO Talal Butt on Powering a Smart Ecosystem Through Platform Strategy and GenAI

Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)

Generac Power Systems is no longer just a generator company — it’s becoming a full-stack energy technology platform. In this episode of Technovation, CIO Talal Butt offers a behind-the-scenes look at how he’s reshaping the $4.3B manufacturer’s technology landscape to support that evolution.

Speaking directly to senior IT and digital leaders, Talal shares how he’s building a modern digital ecosystem from scratch — one that’s powered by real-time data, platform thinking, and AI-driven decisioning. From architecting Generac’s first scalable data governance program to operationalizing GenAI use cases and redefining the partner experience, this episode is a playbook for CIOs navigating transformation in legacy industries.

Highlights include:

• Digital Ecosystem Strategy: Creating a seamless platform experience for both customers and partners across 140+ countries.
• AI-Enabled Operations: How Generac is moving beyond dashboards to predictive models for forecasting, cross-sell, and supply chain optimization.
• Operational Excellence: Leveraging ITSM and root cause analysis to scale global operations while reducing tech debt and downtime.
• Platform Thinking: Building product lines to serve hyperscale data centers while unifying energy generation, storage, and management.