As technology accelerates, nutrition professionals are increasingly surrounded by AI tools, predictive models, and digital platforms. Yet one truth remains: clients don’t change because an app tells them to. They change because a human understands them. Drawing on insights from MIT Sloan’s AI in Business Strategy program and nearly two decades of clinical and coaching experience, this session examines where emerging technologies help and where they fall short in capturing human complexity. While machine-learning systems detect patterns, they often miss deeper nuances such as motivation barriers, cognitive load, social determinants, emotional factors, intention–behavior gaps, inaccurate self-reporting, and the clinical red flags dietitians recognize instinctively.
Through compelling real-world stories, case studies, and systems-level analysis, we will explore the future-ready skills RDNs need in an AI-enhanced world. Attendees will learn how to interpret digital inputs from AI coaching tools, wearable recovery metrics, and predictive nutrition algorithms, and how to communicate these limitations within interprofessional teams. This session provides objective analysis and does not endorse any specific products.
Participants will leave with a practical, ethically grounded framework for blending high-tech insights with high-touch relationship-building to deliver more personalized, context-aware care.
Learning Objectives
Identify key limitations of AI-driven nutrition tools, including behavior-attribution errors and missed contextual cues such as motivation barriers and emotional or social determinants.
Recognize clinical and behavioral red flags that technology frequently overlooks, using narrative case examples to distinguish between digital outputs and lived client experience.
Apply a practical evaluation framework to integrate digital tools into nutrition practice while maintaining ethical, human-centered clinical decision-making.
Performance Indicators
6.1.2 Applies understanding of informatics terminology and input and output devices (e.g., food and nutrition management systems, electronic health record (EHR), relational databases, wearables, cloud platforms, AI-driven tools).
6.3.5 Understands emerging technologies (e.g., AI, machine learning) and associated ethical considerations, including bias, data ownership, transparency, and the responsible use of data by healthcare professionals or clients.
5.1.3 Identifies misinformation and inaccurate information to inform decision making
Speaker
Brandi Zenker
Health Coach Dietitian,ActiveHealth Management
Brandi Zenker, MS, RDN, LD, MBA Candidate, is a Registered Dietitian with nearly 20 years of experience spanning clinical nutrition, population health, renal care, behavior change, clinical operations, and healthcare technology. At ActiveHealth Management, she works across direct client care and clinical innovation, including Epic workflow optimization, AI-assisted documentation, clinician training, knowledge management, and digital care delivery.
Brandi holds a Master of Science in Health Sciences with a concentration in Clinical Nutrition from Georgia State University and will graduate with her MBA from the University of Georgia in December 2026. Her additional training includes AI strategy through MIT Sloan, strategic innovation through Wharton Executive Education, and design thinking through Harvard Business School Online. She is also a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.
Her clinical career began in medical-surgical nutrition at Wellstar Cobb Medical Center, followed by high-acuity and specialty care at Grady Memorial Hospital, including the Walter L. Ingram Burn Center, trauma, stroke, oncology, dialysis, and pediatrics. She later served as Lead Dietitian for Fresenius Medical Care’s Bluegrass and Western North Carolina region, supporting nutrition quality and operations across more than 20 dialysis facilities.
Brandi’s work sits at the intersection of nutrition, behavior change, technology, and healthcare transformation. She is passionate about helping dietitians use emerging technologies responsibly while strengthening the clinical reasoning, professional judgment, and human understanding that define exceptional nutrition care. Outside of work, she is an artist who enjoys chess and golf and shares her North Carolina home with two Norwegian Elkhounds, Loki and Silver.
Sherry Coleman Collins, MS, RDN, LD, FAND, is a registered dietitian nutritionist, nutrition communicator, and culinary nutrition expert with more than 20 years of experience helping people and organizations translate nutrition science into meaningful action.
Her diverse background spans medical nutrition therapy, food allergies, clinical nutrition, school foodservice, culinary nutrition, and nutrition communications. A food-first, plant-forward practitioner and enthusiastic home cook, Sherry believes nutritious food should also be delicious, practical, and enjoyable. As a clinician and educator, Sherry uses evidence-based nutrition strategies, motivational interviewing, and personalized behavior-change techniques to help individuals and groups make sustainable changes that fit their lives. She is equally passionate about translating complex research and nutrition science into clear, credible, and engaging information for consumers and health professionals.
Sherry is an experienced writer, speaker, trainer, and content developer who has created and delivered in-person, virtual, and on-demand education across print, digital, social, and traditional media. A collaborative problem-solver, she has worked across disciplines with researchers, clinicians, communications and PR professionals, marketers, media dietitians, designers, digital content developers, and other experts to turn evidence into education, resources, and meaningful initiatives that improve health and elevate the role of nutrition.
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