Opening remarks from the event director

09.00 - 09.10

An exploration of how organisations can navigate the intersection of digital transformation and AI adoption in highly regulated environments, where the need for speed must be carefully balanced with compliance. This keynote examines a critical shift: AI is not simply accelerating existing processes, but fundamentally reshaping how work flows across organisations. Rather than incremental improvement, this demands structural reinvention of operating models, governance, and decision-making. Bridging digital transformation and AI strategy, the session will offer a forward-looking perspective on managing uncertainty, aligning stakeholders, and redesigning organisations to thrive in increasingly complex, regulated landscapes while unlocking the full potential of AI-driven change.

Checkatrade sits at the intersection of two worlds; a consumer marketplace and the operating backbone for tens of thousands of tradespeople. This session explores how we're using AI across both: from scaling operations without scaling headcount, to reimagining how trades run their businesses. Gorden will share what's working, what's not, and why the biggest unlock isn't the model, it's the data, the culture, and the courage to move fast in a regulated, trust-sensitive market.

AI is making the future of the enterprise deeply uncertain, and CEOs know it. The question is no longer about adoption, it’s about survival, relevance, and what the business becomes next. Yet most organisations are responding with disconnected tools and isolated use cases, creating complexity instead of advantage. Activity is rising, but transformation is not, widening the Business Impact Gap and putting future business models at risk. This session will outline how to move beyond experimentation quickly, align AI across the business, and build the systems needed to shape, not react to, an unpredictable future.

As organisations move beyond AI experimentation, the challenge is no longer capability, it’s control. Agentic systems promise autonomy and scale, but introduce new risks around reliability, coordination, data, and governance. This session explores how leading enterprises are shifting from hype to engineered AI systems that are predictable, testable, and safe. Through practical design patterns including constrained autonomy, orchestration, guardrails, and observability you’ll learn how to build agentic systems that deliver real business value without sacrificing oversight. This talk reframes AI from intelligent magic to disciplined engineering, offering a clear path to enterprise-ready, trustworthy AI at scale.

Our first networking break of the day taking place within the exhibitor floor where teas, coffees and refreshments will be available.

10.50 - 11.20

Most organisations have moved beyond AI experimentation, yet few have translated early use cases into meaningful enterprise-wide impact. This panel brings together senior leaders responsible for operations, technology, finance, and transformation to explore what it really takes to embed AI into the core of the business. From scaling beyond pilots and redesigning workflows to measuring productivity and proving ROI, the discussion will focus on the internal realities of enterprise AI. Attendees will gain practical insights into operating models, common pitfalls, and how to ensure AI initiatives deliver measurable operational and financial outcomes across the organisation.

AI is outpacing the governance structures meant to contain it. The 3A Framework, Authority, Audit, and Accountability offers a practical architecture for scaling AI without sacrificing performance gains. Authority clarifies who owns AI-driven decisions. Audit challenges whether organisations can reconstruct and interrogate what their systems have done. Accountability addresses the diffusion of responsibility that turns AI failures into finger-pointing exercises. Underpinning all three is reversibility of harm: ensuring that when errors occur, they can be detected, contained, and corrected.

Dubbed "AI shame", 53% of C-suite leaders conceal their AI use despite being its heaviest users. The rest are telling you about it daily, asking why you're not keeping up. AI shame reflects a quiet concern about appearing less fluent than peers, and a lack of grounding to make sound decisions. Meanwhile, over-confident executives issuing bold AI pronouncements regret them the next week. Training doesn't fix this. Most leaders don't want to be prompt engineers; they want to make good decisions. This session gives approaches and frameworks to move from AI shame toward informed decision-making, or to push back on the CEO expecting his vibe-coded ERP system next week.

Mezze lunch served within the exhibitor floor, our event chef prepares a highly nutritious and energising lunch. It's a great chance to chat with fellow delegates on the key morning highlights and also a brilliant time to connect and discover more on the services on offer from our event exhibitors.

12.50 - 13.50

AI transformation is often framed as a technology shift but in reality, it’s a fundamental change in how people work, make decisions, and collaborate. This session explores why many AI initiatives fall short when culture and behaviours fail to keep pace with technological capability. It will examine how automation is augmenting rather than replacing roles, elevating human contribution toward judgement, creativity, and problem-solving. The talk will also address what it takes to build an AI-ready workforce, from reskilling and digital literacy to enabling cross-functional collaboration. Looking ahead, it offers a perspective on the future workplace, where human and AI collaboration becomes the norm.

As organisations scale AI adoption, most efforts remain focused on models, data, and infrastructure, overlooking where value is actually realised: the human-AI interface. This talk argues that AI should be designed around organizational roles, not generic users. Different roles shape how individuals interpret, prompt, and act on AI outputs, making context critical to performance. Introducing a Human-AI Tasking Matrix, the talk offers a practical framework to align AI with task characteristics and role expectations. The key takeaway is that effective AI integration is not just a technical challenge but an organizational design problem, where role-based alignment enables better decisions, collaboration, and strategic value.

Our afternoon networking break  taking place within the exhibitor floor where teas, coffees and refreshments will be available.

15.05 - 15.30

The way organisations design and execute go-to-market strategy is changing - not incrementally, but structurally. AI is shifting teams from intuition-led decision making to systemised, evidence-backed approaches, reshaping how companies research markets, validate ideas, test messages, and scale what works. But this transition is neither linear nor universal. Drawing on over 14 years of experience across BlaBlaCar, Waggel but also Twin Travel where GTM was built from zero with an AI stack - this session explores how AI is redefining operating models across functions, what actually scales versus what doesn't when embedding AI into core business processes, and where human judgement remains the decisive advantage. Practical, cross-functional, and grounded in real organisational experience across different stages of scale.

AI transformation only delivers value when it improves workflows, decision-making, and day-to-day operations. This session explores how organisations can move beyond hype and pilot activity to embed AI into real processes, teams, and jobs to be done. Drawing on experience as an AI Product Leader and Technology Strategist, it focuses on practical ways to design and deliver systems that people actually use. The session will highlight common gaps between ambition and adoption, and how to close them through better product thinking, workflow integration, and user alignment. It offers a grounded perspective for leaders seeking meaningful, scalable AI-driven transformation.

Grab a drink with your fellow delegates, a brilliant opportunity for some closing networking and to create meaningful connections with like-minded professionals.

16.55 - 17.45