About us
Agentic Hub was built by the two of us.
GIANFRANCO identifies where AI can deliver real value. He brings an outside perspective backed by thirty years of consulting and training across more than 450 companies.
FRANCESCO designs the AI agent system to support and boost the team, with twenty-five years of experience across marketing direction, software development, and AI startups.
AI is not meant to eliminate the human factor, but to remove daily friction while leaving humans in full control.
FRANCESCO BOSCHETTI
How we work
The process, before the technology
First, the organisation must be read and understood, identifying the spot where concrete value can be created. We pinpoint an area where artificial intelligence systems won't just save a few hours: they can create systemic value.
The implementation plan
How that process becomes executable: what it entails for the organisation, for the infrastructure, for the tools already in use, and for how information flows. This is the crucial intermediate bridge between before and after. It must not be disruptive and must minimise any operational slowdown.
Human in the loop
The agentic system is brought to life centered on human + AI interaction. An iterative cycle begins, through which the system is continuously refined by actual use.
People inside the change
What changes in daily work and how people can adopt the new tools to improve daily tasks. This is the delicate phase that determines the long-term success of the initiative.
Gianfranco Ardenti
- Owner of two consulting firms; previously commercial and marketing director
- Over 450 companies advised — mostly manufacturing SMEs in the Emilian districts: mechanical engineering, packaging, plant engineering, food
- Over 20,000 hours of classroom training, from industry association training bodies to ABI and ICE, up to groups like Prada, Ducati, and Ferrovie dello Stato
- Opened markets in China, Japan, Russia, and South America for Italian companies
- Since 2019, independent research on market theory; since 2023 part of the Google Developer Group in Modena, studying the impact of AI on industrial processes
Francesco Boschetti
- Company owner since 2001; today co-founder of Dietro la reception, a brand of Agm Studio
- Marketing director at ZARE from 2014 to 2021, a manufacturing group that became an Italian benchmark in Industrial Additive Manufacturing and was acquired by SANDVIK
- Designed an application sold to suppliers of Castorama and Bricocenter, earning royalties for years
- AI software in 3Festo and Bonobo AI; since 2019, marketing for Villaggio Europa
- Three Saïd Business School certifications (University of Oxford) on generative and agentic AI
Two parallel paths,
the same industrial district
Thirty years of Emilian companies, two paths from two different sides. They crossed here.
1993Gianfranco
Sociology, not economics
I graduated in Bologna in Political Science, sociological track, with an experimental thesis on the sociology of tourism. It's not the classic path for someone who ends up doing international marketing, and that's exactly why I look at companies as systems of people before I look at them as income statements.
1996Gianfranco
South America and Asia, suitcase in hand
At Silos Italia — Gruppo Euroelettra I was marketing manager and area manager for South American and Asian countries. Scouting foreign partners, joint ventures, relations with the international ITSC consortium. I learned that you don't study a market from reports: you go and see it.
1999Francesco
My name is Flash!
In '99 I turned 20 and lived in Sassuolo (Modena), Italy's tile-making capital. That year I started working with Artenueva (one of the very first web agencies in town), and with Microinformatica (a long-standing computer shop). I moved from FrontPage to the Macromedia suite — and the stories I could tell about Flash!
1999Gianfranco
Sima & co., on my own
I opened my own consulting firm in Reggio Emilia. From then on I went into hundreds of companies across the district: mechanical engineering, plant engineering, packaging, ceramics, food. Always the same question, in different forms: where value is being lost, and why nobody notices.
2001Francesco
Freewave, the free wave of websites
I founded Freewave s.r.l., a company building websites. In 2003 we bought our first machine in a server farm and started writing software in PHP. We launched an e-commerce platform, MasterixWeb, unveiled at SMAU.
2001Gianfranco
Teaching processes by simulating them
I earned my teaching qualification in Simulimpresa, a methodology that recreates a real company's departments in the classroom. I ran projects unique in Europe — L'Incontralavoro and Tetris. That's where I learned that you only really understand a process once you have to teach it.
2005–2008Francesco
Freelance and on-site IT, inside companies
I left Freewave and went freelance: helping companies get online, often for the first time. They needed a presence; I was interested in understanding how they really worked.
I then became a partner at BM Informatica, providing IT support to local businesses. That's where I learned the on-site IT and infrastructure needs of business systems.
2009Francesco
Ztrasp, Castorama and Bricocenter
I joined a great project. I designed, built and maintained for years a "hybrid" application, offline and online, for which I earned royalties for several years. It was sold to suppliers of Castorama (now Leroy Merlin) and Bricocenter, and handled feeding warehouse data to the exchange platform.
2010Gianfranco
Twenty-eight companies, seven provinces
An assignment from the Emilia-Romagna Region: go into 28 SMEs across seven provinces and build, for each one, an analysis of strengths and weaknesses, with a plan to reduce risks and push the strong points to excellence. Twenty-eight different companies, twenty-eight processes to rewrite.
2012–2021Francesco
ZARE and industrial marketing
In 2012 I built a website for a small manufacturing company: ZARE. From 2014 to 2021 I was its marketing director, as the group became an Italian reference point in Industrial Additive Manufacturing.
I handled strategy, trade shows in Italy and abroad, Open Days, video, sales, campaigns with HP, Zeiss and Zwick Roell. At the end of that chapter, ZARE joined the BEAMIT group, part of Sandvik.
2013Gianfranco
Mano d'Oro, on the other side of the counter
I registered my own trademark to bring artisan Italian food & wine to Japan, Taiwan and the United States. Advising on export is one thing; doing it with your own money is another. I'd recommend every consultant try it at least once.
2015–2017Gianfranco
Market risk management and Temporary Management
Between 2015 and 2017 I developed methodologies for SMEs to analyse geopolitical and market risks, combining executive consulting with roles as Strategic Temporary Export Manager for industry associations such as Confindustria Salerno, API Mantova and Confimi Modena.
2017–2019Gianfranco
The Export Guide and lecturing for ICE/ITA
I co-authored the Export Guide for SMEs (promoted by the Mantova Chamber of Commerce), defining operational methods for international expansion plans. This led to lecturing for ICE / ITA (Italian Trade Agency) and coordinating theExecutive Master in Export Management in Rome, Milan and Verona.
2022Francesco
AI, as a tool
I put my first AI processes into practice building software at 3Festo, an innovative startup that makes industrial software products for the additive manufacturing supply chain.
There, AI was and still is a tool inside the industrial process. That's where I learned to use it and integrate it into the work, not just bolt it on top.
2023Francesco
Tourism, B2C and everyday processes
Since 2019 I've run marketing for Villaggio Europa, on the Adriatic coast. Tourism brings different complexities: more weight on the numbers, lower average tickets, less critical sales relationships.
We're still having fun today, and making sure our guests do too. I'd say we're on the right track!
2023Gianfranco
AI seen from the industry side
I joined the Google Developer Group in Modena, the largest Italian group building AI systems. Not to learn to code: to understand what the real fields of application are, what impact they have on the industrial world, and how they're used to improve a company's internal processes.
2025 / todayFrancesco
AI in the processes
That way of working became the engine behind helping to build Bonobo AI, a product that generates complex quotes with AI. I apply the same principles today with Dietro la reception and in the marketing processes of Villaggio Europa.
This is where Agentic Hub comes from: a cockpit for AI agents built on a business's real processes, running inside a perimeter the client controls.
Credentials and accreditations
Credentials and Certifications
Emilia-Romagna Region
Accredited professional area expert — Marketing and sales
Accreditation as a commercial / marketing technician
Simulimpresa
Teaching qualification
Training methodology that recreates company departments' activities in the classroom
ABI · ICE / ITA
Ongoing teaching engagements
Italian Banking Association and Italian Trade Agency
Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
University of Oxford
AI Essential
Verify certificateSaïd Business School
University of Oxford
University of Oxford
Generative and Agentic AI
Verify certificateSaïd Business School
University of Oxford
University of Oxford
