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Agenda

Highlights
Theme
Sessions

Highlights + Experiences

A curated experience designed for senior data and AI leaders—where strategic insight meets meaningful connection.

Fortune 500 Executive Panels

Candid discussions with senior data and AI leaders on what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next.

Keynotes from Industry Leaders

Hear directly from the executives shaping the future of AI, with strategic insights and real-world lessons you can apply immediately.

Executive Roundtables

Closed-door, peer-level discussions designed for depth, collaboration, and high-trust problem-solving.

Exclusive Executive Dinners

Private, small-group dining experiences that foster deeper relationships and meaningful conversation.

AI Unfiltered: Anonymous Peer Exchange

A signature ALIGN experience where executives workshop real challenges anonymously—creating a candid, constructive, and judgment-free environment.

Leading-Edge AI Presentations

Explore cutting-edge technologies, use cases, and implementation strategies driving real business impact.

Identify AI Partners That Deliver ROI

Connect with credible, experienced partners who have a proven track record of delivering real business outcomes—so you can move from exploration to execution with confidence.

Stunning Venues + Culinary Experience

Hosted in stunning, carefully selected venues—paired with elevated dining and hosted drinks to enhance connection and conversation.

2026 Events Theme

AI for Enterprise:
From Pilots to Production

Enterprise AI is entering a new phase. In 2026, it’s no longer about access to models or experimentation—it’s about building systems that are scalable, governed, secure, and tied to real business outcomes. As organizations move from pilots to production, success depends on operationalizing AI with confidence.

Our events explore what it truly takes to make AI work inside the enterprise—from systems and governance to data foundations and economics. From context engineering and agentic workflows to platform strategy and measurable ROI, we focus on the realities leaders must address now.

Our point of view is simple: enterprise AI is no longer a model conversation. It is a systems, governance, and value conversation.
AI executive summit » Data Science Connect

This Year's Content Pillars

AI executive summit » Data Science Connect

Pillar 1: AI as a System

Enterprise AI is no longer about deploying a model. It is about operating a system.

This pillar explores the shift from isolated AI capabilities to full production systems that require evaluation, observability, context management, release discipline, and resilience over time. It includes the move from traditional RAG toward broader context engineering approaches that incorporate retrieval, orchestration, tool use, and emerging protocols such as MCP within a larger enterprise architecture. The focus is not just intelligence, but reliability.

Key discussion points:
— Context engineering beyond classic RAG
— Evaluation, observability, and AI system reliability
— LLMOps and GenAIOps for production environments
— Agents as systems, not just features
— Enterprise knowledge architecture and grounded AI
AI executive summit » Data Science Connect

Pillar 2: Governance That Runs

In 2026, governance must move from policy decks to runtime enforcement.

As regulation tightens and enterprise exposure grows, governance can no longer live only in committees, documentation, or static controls. This pillar focuses on how organizations make governance operational through technical controls, monitoring, auditability, security engineering, and cross-functional accountability. It reflects the growing reality that enterprise AI must be not only innovative, but provable, defensible, and trustworthy.

Key discussion points:
— Runtime governance and policy enforcement
— AI risk, security, and model accountability
— Privacy, sovereignty, and data rights
— Audit readiness and evidence generation
— Governing agents, autonomy, and human oversight
AI executive summit » Data Science Connect

Pillar 3: The Economics of AI

AI is now a portfolio decision, not a side experiment.

As organizations scale usage, leaders are under pressure to demonstrate impact while managing cost. This pillar examines the economics of enterprise AI: how to prioritize use cases, measure value, understand cost-to-serve, and create discipline around infrastructure, tooling, vendor spend, and human oversight. The goal is to move beyond vague transformation language toward credible ROI and durable operating models.

Key discussion points:
— Measuring AI ROI in real business terms
— FinOps for AI and cost governance
— Use case prioritization and portfolio strategy
— Productivity, performance, and value realization
— Sustainable scaling and long-term economics
AI executive summit » Data Science Connect

Pillar 4: The Enterprise Foundation

AI maturity is still constrained by data maturity, platform choices, and organizational design.

This pillar focuses on the underlying foundation that makes enterprise AI possible. That includes AI-ready data, metadata, lineage, semantics, interoperability, platform strategy, and the operating models that determine who owns AI and how it scales. It also addresses the organizational realities behind enterprise adoption: workforce readiness, cross-functional alignment, and the tension between centralized control and distributed innovation.

Key discussion points:
— AI-ready data foundations and semantic consistency
— Data governance and AI governance convergence
— Platform strategy, interoperability, and lock-in
— Operating models for data and AI leadership
— AI literacy, adoption, and organizational readiness

Topics to Expect

— Agentic AI Platforms
— Enterprise AI Applications
— Copilots & Workflow Automation
— Context Engineering & Orchestration
— Model Context Protocol (MCP) & Tooling

— LLMOps / GenAIOps Platforms
— AI Evaluation & Testing
— Prompt & Context Management
— AI Observability
— AI System Monitoring & Debugging

— Data Platforms (Lakehouse, Warehouse, Hybrid)
— Data Engineering & Pipelines
— Data Quality & Data Observability
— Metadata, Lineage & Cataloging
— Unstructured Data & Content Operations

— Retrieval Systems & Vector Databases
— Enterprise Search & Knowledge Management
— Knowledge Graphs & Semantic Layers
— Context & Retrieval Optimization

— AI Infrastructure & Compute (GPU, Inference)
— Model Serving & Inference Optimization
— AI Platform Engineering
— Scalability, Latency & Performance Optimization

— AI Governance Platforms
— Model Risk Management
— AI Security (Prompt Injection, Data Leakage, etc.)
— Privacy Engineering & Data Protection
— Compliance & Regulatory Technology

— FinOps for AI
— Cost Optimization & Usage Monitoring
— AI ROI Measurement & Value Tracking
— Vendor & Model Cost Management

— Interoperability & Data Sharing
— API & Integration Platforms
— Data/AI Ecosystem Strategy
— Vendor Consolidation vs Best-of-Breed

— AI Operating Models (Centralized vs Federated)
— AI Product & Platform Teams
— Workforce AI Enablement & Literacy
— Change Management & Adoption

Session Catalog

8:00 AM-8:45 AM

Registration & Breakfast

Networking

8:45 AM-10:00 AM

Opening Keynote Sessions

Keynotes

9:00 AM-9:20 AM

Keynote Presentation by IBM

Keynotes

10:00 AM-10:30 AM

Networking Break

Networking

10:30 AM-11:15 AM

From Models to Systems: Why Most AI Fails to Make It Into Production

Executive Roundtable (Invite-Only)
Many AI initiatives show promise in experimentation but stall before delivering real business value. This discussion focuses on what it takes to move from isolated models to operational systems, examining breakdowns in orchestration, infrastructure, and team workflows—and how organizations are closing the gap to production.

10:30 AM-11:15 AM

Agents in the Enterprise: Hype, Reality, and Risk

Panel Discussion
AI agents are generating significant attention, but enterprise adoption requires a clear view of both opportunity and risk. This session examines where agents deliver real value today, where expectations outpace reality, and how organizations can manage challenges around control, governance, and reliability while scaling agent-driven workflows responsibly.

11:20 AM-12:05 PM

How Do You Future-Proof Your AI Architecture in a Fast-Moving Market?

Executive Roundtable (Invite-Only)
AI is evolving quickly, and architectures built today can become constraints tomorrow. This roundtable explores how organizations are designing for flexibility and longevity, from multi-model and multi-cloud strategies to modular, interoperable systems. We’ll examine how teams are balancing innovation speed with architectural discipline while navigating emerging standards and integration challenges.

11:20 AM-12:05 PM

Garbage In, Liability Out: Data Quality, Governance, and AI You Can Trust

Panel Discussion
AI systems are only as reliable as the data behind them, and poor inputs can quickly become business risks. This session explores how organizations are strengthening data quality, governance, and oversight to build AI they can trust—focusing on practical approaches to ensuring accuracy, accountability, and compliance as AI moves deeper into enterprise workflows.

12:05 PM-1:00 PM

Networking Lunch + Open Bar Begins

Networking

1:05 PM-1:50 PM

Owning vs. Renting Your AI: Control, Cost, and Competitive Advantage

Executive Roundtable (Invite-Only)
As AI adoption scales, organizations are rethinking who controls their models, data, and outcomes. This roundtable explores the tradeoffs between owning and renting AI capabilities, from cost and performance to security and long-term differentiation, and how leading teams are navigating open, proprietary, and hybrid approaches.

1:05 PM-1:50 PM

Scaling AI That Works: Proving Value, Managing Cost, and Driving Impact

Panel Discussion
Scaling AI requires more than successful pilots. This session explores how organizations are proving real business value, managing the cost of models and infrastructure, and translating early wins into sustained impact. We’ll look at practical approaches to prioritization, measurement, and operational discipline that enable AI initiatives to scale with confidence.

1:55 PM-2:15 PM

Building AI-Ready Infrastructure: Data, Performance, and Scalability at the Core

Presentation
This session explores how organizations are rethinking infrastructure to support modern AI workloads, from high-performance data pipelines to scalable storage and compute. We’ll examine how to reduce bottlenecks between data and models, support real-time and batch workloads, and design architectures that can handle growing demands without sacrificing performance, cost efficiency, or operational control.

2:15 PM-2:35 PM

Networking Break

Networking

2:40 PM-3:25 PM

Can You Trust Your AI? Governance, Explainability, and Enterprise Risk

Executive Roundtable (Invite-Only)
As AI moves into core business processes, trust becomes a measurable requirement. This roundtable explores how organizations are approaching governance, explainability, and accountability, and where responsibility should sit across data, models, and workflows to balance innovation with risk.

3:05 PM-3:25 PM

AI Without Exposure: Securing Sensitive Data in Intelligent Systems

Presentation
As AI systems integrate deeper into enterprise workflows, protecting sensitive data becomes a design requirement, not an afterthought. This session focuses on how organizations are enabling AI while maintaining strict control over personally identifiable and regulated data, exploring approaches to data isolation, tokenization, and secure data flows that preserve privacy without limiting functionality.

3:30 PM-4:15 PM

AI Unfiltered: Anonymous Peer Exchange

Roundtable (Open to All Attendees)
This ALIGN-exclusive session creates a unique space for candid, anonymous exchange on AI challenges inside the enterprise. Attendees submit questions and issues throughout the day, then engage in facilitated group discussions to unpack those scenarios, share perspectives, and explore practical approaches grounded in real-world experience rather than prepared narratives.

4:15 PM-4:25 PM

Closing Remarks

Closing Remarks

4:30 PM

Executive Happy Hours + Dinners (Invite-Only)

Executive Happy Hour / Dinner (Invite-Only)