1. 10:20 – 10:40Transformation Stage

    Quo Vadis AI?

    Johann Strauss, CTO AI Solutions at Dell and responsible for the European Union AI ecosystem, will explore why AI is the “new Internet” moving at four times the speed – and why efficiency alone is no longer a competitive advantage. We will discuss AI as a component of digital transformation, why "unsteered AI" doesn’t fail loudly but succeeds quietly in the wrong direction, and how to build an ecosystem approach instead of betting on a single vendor. From “Terminator” fears to “Wall-E” fantasies, he will separate hype from reality, showing how agentic AI and digital twins are already transforming enterprises of all sizes. C level leaders will leave with a clearer view of where to apply AI first – and where not to.

    • Johann Strauss
      CTO, AI Solutions, Dell Technologies
  2. 10:20 – 11:00Growth Stage

    The AI era is here. Here's the history, the reality, and why you still matter.

    A grounded, practitioner's view of where AI genuinely stands today. Eric maps the current pace of AI autonomy and what it already means for you, giving every participant a concrete next step based on their current level of AI fluency.

    • Eric Dubern
      Senior Indirect Sourcing Director, GE Healthcare
  3. 10:40 – 11:00Advantage Stage

    3 key elements to deliver ROI from AI intiatives

    I would start by concrete examples of 3 AI projects scaled in 20+ countries with proven ROI in Pernod Ricard : • A tool for marketer to optimized the Adverstising spend by type of activity (TV, Socila Media, Displays in store, …) • An engine recommending every Monday morning the 25 outlets to visit, and in each recommendation of actions (list a new product, check a promotion, … • A promotion optimization app (is it better to give 3€ discount on 2 bottles of 70c Absolut, or 2€ on a liter bottle ?) 1. The 5 forgotten components of successfully deploying AI at scale internationally In a nutshell: Starting with a clear expected ROI, why strong executive sponsorship is also key.. Development of internal data and AI capabilities (rather than reliance on external vendors). Balance between global standardization and local adaptation, and a phased test-and-learn approach before full industrialization. 2. Success of your AI program will depend on adoption, because no adoption means no ROI In a nutshell: ROI is significantly amplified by organizational adoption. When AI tools are embedded into core processes, supported by leadership and linked to performance incentives, usage rates rise materially. Conversely, without cultural buy-in and business ownership, even high-performing AI solutions capture only a fraction of their potential value. Digging this topic, I realized that a strong adoption from executives often relies on 2 dimentions : early involvement of future emabssadors … and an optimized UI.

    • Pierre-Yves Calloc’h
      Chief Digital Officer, Pernod Ricard
  4. 10:40 – 11:00Transformation Stage

    Engineering the Future: Harnessing the Power of AI to drive Business Growth

    Best practices for integrating AI capabilities into business operations

    • Eve Psalti
      General Manager, Data & AI, Microsoft
  5. 10:40 – 11:00Future Stage

    Beyond the Adoption Dashboard: How Enterprises Can Get Real Value From AI

    Most enterprises measure AI success the way they'd measure a software rollout, by adoption. When we surveyed our organization, the teams with the highest adoption weren't the ones capturing the most value, and none hit the 10x everyone talks about. I have led many transformations — private equity, commercial turnarounds, and major software rollouts. AI is the first where classic playbook doesn't work: you can't build a roadmap backward from a target state that keeps moving. An honest account from inside an enterprise — including what didn't work: what to measure instead of adoption, how to plan without a fixed target state, and how to build a system that turns experiments into real value.

    • Natalia Andrievskaya
      Head of Strategic Development and PMO, Zalando
  6. 10:40 – 11:00Accelerate Stage

    Building up an Agentic Organisation

    How to create an agentic organisation, how to balance short-time use cases and strategic transformation whilst delivering tangible business value

    • Christian Gondek
      Head of Digitalization & AI, thyssenkrupp
  7. 11:20 – 12:00Transformation Stage

    Human-AI operating model - Moving from AI Pilots to AI Transformation at Viessmann

    At Viessmann Generations Group we are implementing a human-AI operating model — connecting people, expertise, and agents in a way that is adaptive, intelligent, and outcome-driven. You’ll get a practical view of the next evolution of the operating model, how it scales value creation across the core processes of the business and what we learned along the way.

    • Helmut Scherer
      Director, Iteratec
    • Alexander Pöllmann
      Global Director IT & Digital, Viessmann
  8. 11:20 – 11:40Advantage Stage

    The Art of Transformation - Why Strategy, Narrative, and Culture Must Move as One

    How ready is your organization for what comes next? Most leadership teams have an AI strategy. Far fewer have answered the harder question: what happens when the strategy meets the organization — and the organization isn't ready to carry it? In this session, Oktay Tannert-Yaldiz — Founder of REFRAMICA and a leader with 15+ years navigating organizational change from both sides: as Managing Director driving transformation from within, keeping organizations future-ready through strategy, communication, and cultural activation — and as a trusted advisor guiding clients through their own strategic and cultural shifts. You will leave with a clear framework for where AI transformations break down, what to do in the critical first 90 days, and how to build the internal narrative that turns a strategy document into an organization that actually moves.

    • Oktay Tannert-Yaldiz
      Founder & Managing Director, REFRAMICA
  9. 11:20 – 11:40Future Stage

    Beyond Tools and Agents: AI as the Operating System

    Felix Schlenther has hired dozens of AI employees—and let them all go. In his session, the founder of AI FIRST explains what paradigm shift is needed for AI to have a scalable impact within companies. An honest reflection of three years of trial and error—with a clear roadmap for what comes next.

    • Felix Schlenther
      Founder, AI First
  10. 11:20 – 12:00Growth Stage

    Digital Procurement: Why Technology Is the Easy Part

    AI and automation promise quick wins, but the real challenge lies within the organization. This session goes beyond theory and shares real use cases in practice. Explore where automation truly creates value, what a digitally ready procurement organization looks like, and why change management and mindsets ultimately determine success or failure.

    • Peter Tasev
      SVP Procure to Pay, Head of Digitalization, Deutsche Telekom
    • Elisabeth Backes
      Project Lead Digitalization, Deutsche Telekom
  11. 11:20 – 11:40Accelerate Stage

    From Chaos to Capability: Building an AI Upskilling Strategy for 8,000 People at Zero Cost

    In mid-2025, most organisations were drowning in AI ambition and short on execution. Competing priorities, fragmented workforces, and shrinking budgets made meaningful AI adoption feel impossible — especially at scale. This session tells the story of how a global People team cut through the noise and turned ambiguity into a structured, business-aligned AI capability strategy — reaching over 8,000 employees across Europe, the US, and ANZ without a single euro of incremental budget. Jessica Kafka will walk through the real roadmap behind HelloFresh's "Own Your Growth, Share Your Recipe" programme — from diagnosing a fragmented learner landscape, to securing a landmark Google partnership, to embedding AI adoption directly into the company's efficiency agenda rather than running it as a parallel initiative. The key insight: AI upskilling only works when it is owned by the business, not the L&D function. This session gives People and business leaders a practical framework for doing exactly that.

    • Jessica Kafka
      Global Director Learning & Development, HelloFresh
  12. 11:40 – 12:00Future Stage

    Beyond the Black Box: Bringing Legal Reasoning to AI

    Generative AI is a powerhouse for creativity, but where precision is non-negotiable—such as Law and Compliance—probabilistic answers are simply not good enough. In this session, serial entrepreneur Till Behnke introduces a paradigm shift. You will discover how the Rulemapping method (recognized as a breakthrough innovation by SPRIND) moves beyond the "black box" of LLMs by utilizing a structured legal reasoning architecture. Learn how a rule-based approach makes sure that AI that doesn't just predict the next word, but actually follows legal logic—delivering transparent, verifiable, and hallucination-free decisions for even the most sensitive regulatory environments.

    • Till Behnke
      CEO, Founder, Rulemapping Group
  13. 11:40 – 12:00Accelerate Stage

    Unlocking Technical Asset Data with GenAI Agents

    Discover how Deutsche Bahn applies GenAI agents to make complex technical asset and maintenance data accessible through natural-language interaction. The session shows how engineering and operations teams can move faster from fragmented data to actionable insights: improving decision-making, transparency, and efficiency across asset management processes at enterprise scale

    • Dr. Konstantin Jonas
      Head of Data & AI, Deutsche Bahn
  14. 11:40 – 12:00Advantage Stage

    Process Intelligence - Global Scaling of AI Impact

    Scaling AI in a global organization takes more than ambition—it requires the right structures. Drawing on insights from the copper production value chain, this session shows how end-to-end process management anchors, accelerates, and sustains digital transformation at scale.

    • Maj-Britt Pohlmann
      Head of Operational Transformation, Aurubis
  15. 12:00 – 12:20Future Stage

    Germany's AI Moment: Where the Capital Is Going and Why It Matters

    Germany has long been Europe's industrial backbone — but is it becoming its AI backbone too? Drawing on deal flow and funding data across the DACH region, this session maps the current state of AI investment in Germany: where it stands versus France and the UK, what the numbers reveal about founder and investor appetite, and why the application layer is emerging as the most contested — and most promising — frontier. A practitioner's view on what's heating up, what's overhyped, and where the next wave of European AI champions is most likely to come from.

    • Jennifer Bemert
      Principal, XAnge
  16. 12:00 – 12:20Transformation Stage

    Shipping Impact - How Vercel & SAP Are Transforming the Enterprise in the Age of AI

    Most enterprises aren't stuck on whether to invest in AI - they're stuck on why their pilots don't scale. Julian Eckerle (Head of Central Europe at Vercel) opens the session by sharing firsthand perspectives and lessons from Vercel's own AI transformation - what changed, what didn't, and what surprised them. He then sits down with Florian Kunzke (Global Director AI Strategy at SAP) to cut through the theory and get specific: what's actually working across the enterprise landscape, why SAP chose to partner with Vercel on its own AI transformation, what the SAP × Vercel product partnership makes possible, and what business leaders should do next to unlock the power of AI for their operation.

    • Florian Kunzke
      Global Director AI Strategy, SAP
    • Julian Eckerle
      Head of Central Europe, Vercel
  17. 12:00 – 12:30Accelerate Stage

    Your Procurement Agents Are Only as Good as Your Spend Data

    Humans have always worked around imperfect data: they pause, sanity-check, ask a colleague. Agents don't. They act on what they see, faster, and small data gaps compound into bad decisions at scale. This session walks through three concrete procurement agent use cases, what data each one needs, and where existing spend data typically falls short. You’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of what gaps to fix in your data foundation before deploying procurement agents you can trust.

    • Bella Wu
      CEO, Dexter
    • Caterina Kiehntopf
      COO, Dexter
  18. 12:00 – 12:20Growth Stage

    Cyber Security in the Era of AI

    Cyber-security in the era of AI is a double-edged sword: machine-learning models now generate convincing spear-phishing, deepfakes, and self-mutating malware, yet the same techniques power real-time anomaly detection and autonomous incident response. But attackers also exploit vulnerabilities in models through prompt injection, data poisoning, and model inversion. In this session we will talk about how to mitigate these risks with e.g. robust model governance and secure ML pipelines and how AI-driven defense mechanisms, including behavioral analytics and automated threat detection, can outpace traditional security approaches.

    • Eduard Singer
      Founding Member, KI-Bundesverband
  19. 12:00 – 12:20Advantage Stage

    Authenticity & Uniqueness in the Age of AI

    In a world where AI writes faster than we think, originality is quietly at risk. This session explores how convenience can erode authenticity—and why a unique human voice still matters. We will take a look at how to use AI without losing what makes communication truly compelling.

    • Kathleen Burzycki
      VP Marketing and Strategy, Henkel Consumer Goods Adhesives
  20. 13:50 – 14:10Transformation Stage

    The Future of CX in an AI world, Or: How to achieve 80%+ automation and increase customer happiness?

    This session will focus on the significant transformation of Customer Experience through AI. We will discuss how organizations can achieve 80%+ automation while increasing customer happiness at the same time. We will look at implication for your CX landscape as well as the evolution of CX roles. We will end with an outlook on CX if AI takes over.

    • Matthias Goehler
      CTO, Zendesk
  21. 14:00 – 14:40Growth Stage

    From Procurement AI Strategy to an Operating Model That Works

    How to translate AI strategy into a procurement-specific operating model: priority use cases, ownership, governance, and the first pilot logic for strategic and operational procurement.

    • Alejandro Basterrechea
      Fmr. CPO at Zalando, 502Ventures
  22. 14:00 – 14:20Accelerate Stage

    Cautious by Design: Germany’s AI Paradox

    You’ve all built and deployed AI systems. You know the difference between a roadmap PDF and something actually running in production. Germany was early on AI — but it was not fast. A cautious investment culture, slow industry adoption, and a widespread view in established sectors that existing ways of doing business didn’t need to change have held it back.

    • Aatraye Almast-Gentzcke
      Director Strategy and Digital, BioNTech
  23. 14:00 – 14:20Advantage Stage

    Not so innocuous - shadow AI

    A high level overview what happens when teams use seemingly innocuous applications that sit between you and your preferred LLM provider, and a look at how WPP are mitigating the risk of shadow AI by providing a safe platform for our teams to access vetted models.

    • Ashley Hazle
      Global Director, AI & Technology, WPP Production
  24. 14:00 – 14:20Future Stage

    The revolution of intent based robotics

    Why has AI not arrived on the shopfloor yet? Because machines and processes still run in silos and there is no agnostic distribution layer connecting AI applications to physical machines. By implementing such a layer we not only enable to Physical AI, we also solve one of the most demanding challenges in today‘s operations. We make programming robots and machines a breeze by simply giving them the intention - that is, the goal - and letting the AI handle the rest. This makes automation incredibly simple and cost-effective.

    • Dr. Christian Liedtke
      Principal Consultant, KUKA
  25. 14:10 – 14:30Transformation Stage

    600 to 6000: How trivago is Building a 10x Workforce

    trivago’s CTO, Ioannis Papadopoulos, will share how the company is using AI as a multiplier and equaliser to transform its operations. The core idea is that achieving a 10x impact does not come from completing tasks more quickly, but from enabling individuals to perform more of the uniquely human activities that generate value, such as building, orchestrating, connecting and navigating complexity. The session will focus on how trivago is transitioning from AI experimentation to practical workflow transformation with the aim of enabling 600 employees to achieve the output of 6,000.

    • Ioannis Papadopoulos
      CTO, trivago
  26. 14:20 – 14:40Accelerate Stage

    Building the AI workplace at REWE Group: Insights from the Engine room of AI Adoption.

    In this masterclass we‘ll share hands-on insights on how we translated our AI strategy into Action within our workplace AI product at REWE Group, enabling 20.000 colleagues to use AI everyday, and how the need for AI Adoption is transforming the role of IT in that context.

    • Fabio Baerwald
      CPO, REWE digital
  27. 14:20 – 14:40Advantage Stage

    From AI Use to AI Risk Control: Securing Intelligent Systems in Practice

    This session shows how to systematically identify and manage security risks in modern AI applications, from LLMs to autonomous agents. You’ll learn how threats such as prompt injection, data leakage, and agent misuse emerge across the full AI lifecycle, and how to mitigate them in practice. Leave with concrete approaches to secure your AI stack – spanning data, models, tools, and workflows – and ensure safe, reliable deployment in real-world business environments.

    • Mirko Knaak
      AI Leader, IAV
  28. 14:20 – 14:40Future Stage

    Virtual mobile assistants in banking - How Raiffeisen Bank International is transforming customer interaction

    How a legacy CEE bank is tackling AI transformation at scale in 11 countries via virtual mobile assistants.

    • Mathias Fanschek
      Head of Digital Transformation, Raiffeisen Bank International
  29. 14:50 – 15:20Transformation Stage

    What if AI can’t afford to be wrong?

    Most organizations are experimenting with AI, but few are scaling it across core business processes. One of the biggest barriers is trust. Concerns around hallucinations, accuracy and governance continue to slow adoption in business-critical workflows. In this session, we’ll explore and demo how leading enterprises are operationalizing AI and agentic AI to drive measurable business outcomes safely and with confidence.

    • Leon Orr
      Head of Solutions, First Derivative, an EPAM company
    • Thomas Henschen
      Managing Director, Advisory Group, Epam
    • Mik Quinlan
      Senior Director, EPAM
  30. 15:00 – 15:40Growth Stage

    AI for Procurement: Building a Scalable AI Analytics Agent for Supplier & Negotiation Insights

    How procurement teams can build the technical and data foundations for an AI analytics agent that enhances supplier analysis, identifies negotiation potential, and strengthens preparation. Drawing on a production AI system used in real procurement contexts, this session explores how internal and external data can be combined, how to create a lean but reliable data basis, and what it takes to scale a grounded AI use case in a controlled and decision-ready way.

    • Dr. Christian Haase
      Head of Data and AI, Libri
  31. 15:00 – 15:20Accelerate Stage

    Moving beyond Productivity: How Enterprise AI Creates Organizational Impact

    AI is taking hold in the enterprise — and yet many organizations are still waiting for the payoff. The tools are powerful. The potential is real. But something fundamental is missing between individual productivity and lasting organizational impact. In this session, we explore some of the challenges and dive into three concrete themes that shape the next chapter at SAP: how generative UI shifts enterprise software from navigation to intent; how company memory grounds agents in organizational context; and how tabular AI democratizes business predictions. Actionable, opinionated and anchored in product truth.

    • Florian Kunzke
      Global Director AI Strategy, SAP
  32. 15:00 – 15:20Advantage Stage

    Why AI Transformation Fail

    How to move from AI experimentation to AI transformation that matters.

    • Lisa Björnberg
      VP of AI Transformation, Hubspot
  33. 15:20 – 15:40Future Stage

    Why AI Scaling Fails Without Organizational Intelligence

    Many companies are investing heavily in AI but struggle to move beyond pilots into real impact. This session argues that the bottleneck is not technology, but missing organizational intelligence. AI systems – especially agents – require context, experience and decision logic to operate effectively. Sebastian Walker will show why scaling AI means more than deploying models, and what structures companies need to build to turn fragmented knowledge into actionable intelligence. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of why many AI initiatives stall – and what needs to change to make AI work at scale.

    • Sebastian Walker
      CEO, Founder, Omnora
  34. 15:20 – 15:40Transformation Stage

    Why AI Transformations Fail Before They Start — Stop Piloting. Start Scaling

    The Practitioner's Playbook for AI That Actually Delivers Business Value How to prioritize the right bets, read your AI readiness honestly, and build the operating model that makes AI stick

    • Andre Cremers
      Global Head of Data & AI, Bayer
  35. 15:20 – 15:40Advantage Stage

    Beyond the Model: Building Organizational Capability for AI-Enabled Medical Devices

    Achieving high model accuracy is often the easiest part of the journey. The real challenge lies in transitioning a research-grade model into a regulated, AI-enabled medical device. I will share how we streamlined R&D by centralizing data assets and building cross-functional infrastructure to bridge the gap between data science, IT, regulatory, and medical teams. Industrializing our data processes and fostering deep internal collaboration allows us to move beyond standalone ML models to deliver genuine clinical utility and insights that integrate seamlessly into patient care.

    • Felix Brockherde
      Director of Data Science & AI, Fresenius Medical Care
  36. 15:20 – 15:40Accelerate Stage

    Disrupting your marketing and team with AI.

    Triggering ideas, seeding the plant for your future marketing organization, as well as your marketing playbook which needs to be adapted. How to manage more creative output with less people and less budget?

    • Volker Harbrecht
      Head of eCommerce, Meta
  37. 15:40 – 16:00Accelerate Stage

    From Idea to First Live Call in Under 3 Weeks: How Sky Scaled Proactive Voice AI Across Hundreds of Thousands of Calls

    Inbound voice automation is everywhere. Proactive Voice AI at enterprise scale is not, yet that's where the real growth lies. Sky, Europe's leading entertainment and telecom company, went from concept to first live call in under three weeks and now runs proactive AI-driven conversations across customer care and sales unlocking touchpoints that simply weren't possible to tackle before. Michael Resch (Director Service Excellence) and Jeton Gashi (Head of Commercial Program & Sales Support) share the rollout playbook, the business impact, and a live demo plus how to guide employees and other stakeholders to AI adoption at scale.

    • Philipp Baumanns
      CEO, Telli
    • Jeton Gashi
      Head of Commercial Program & Sales Support, Sky Deutschland
    • Michael Resch
      Director Service Excellence, Sky Deutschland
  38. 15:40 – 16:00Transformation Stage

    Governing AI Agents

    How to build and govern AI Agents on popular platforms like MS Copilot Studio, or n8n, including workstation agents like Claude Code. These AI Agents are famously probabilistic and can make mistakes. We will answer how to safely move them from prototype to production so you can get the benefits without the risks.

    • Filip Verloy
      CTO EMEA & APJ, Rubrik
  39. 15:40 – 16:00Growth Stage

    AI in Strategy - from Slides to Apps

    Actual products of AI used in Strategy and Strategic Intelligence: From the "Gardens of Intelligence" principle, to Deep Research Agents for Competitive Intelligence to World Energy Models first crops of the new AI wave were harvested. Gardens of Intelligence: Unification of strategic relevant data and insights Deep Research Agents: Competitive Intelligence automated across (50k pages evaluated and summarized according to a 15x39 matrix of values of the current year and proclaimed targets values out of text) World Energy Model: Universe 3D App out of a World Energy Model depicting 6k variables

    • Marc-Joël Fortelny
      AI & Solution Architect for Strategic Intelligence, OMV
  40. 15:40 – 16:00Future Stage

    The Agentic Leap: Scaling Value in the Era of Autonomous Intelligence

    Stop wasting budget on AI "Innovation Theater" and start building for the P&L. This session reveals how to leap from simple assistants to autonomous Agentic Workflows that execute for days, not minutes. You’ll leave with a blueprint for strategic delegation, a digital immune system for real-time compliance, and the architectural foundation to turn agentic AI into a material competitive advantage.

    • Dr. Jochen Kokemüller
      Head of AI Governance, Bosch
  41. 15:40 – 16:00Advantage Stage

    Sovereignty in Complexity: Scaling Industrial AI for Critical Environments

    This session shows why the standard AI playbook is insufficient for companies in high-stakes, complex environments. You’ll leave with a clear framework to build organizational "complexity competence," a strategic approach to maintaining data sovereignty, and a roadmap for scaling mission-critical AI on Europe’s largest sovereign cloud infrastructure.

    • Paul Liebrecht
      Head of Energy & Digital Solutions, T-Systems International
  42. 16:20 – 16:40Growth Stage

    AI Implemented — Now what? Change Management, Training and Long-Term Adoption

    How to ensure AI actually gets used: training logic, adoption barriers, trust building, and why teams must understand the manual process before they can use AI well.

    • Julian Bröker
      Growth, Zalion
    • Nina Bomberg
      CPO, Hamburger Energiewerke
  43. 16:20 – 17:00Future Stage

    Turning Company Data Into an Agent: The Story Behind Vercel's d0 and How You Can Build Your Own

    • Julian Eckerle
      Head of Central Europe, Vercel
    • Leo Reuter
      Solutions Architect, Vercel
  44. 16:20 – 17:00Advantage Stage

    Workshop - Governing AI Agents

    How to build and govern AI Agents on popular platforms like MS Copilot Studio, or n8n, including workstation agents like Claude Code. These AI Agents are famously probabilistic and can make mistakes. We will answer how to safely move them from prototype to production so you can get the benefits without the risks.

    • Filip Verloy
      CTO EMEA & APJ, Rubrik
  45. 16:20 – 16:50Transformation Stage

    Data as the Lifeblood of AI Transformation

    • Edouard de Mezerac
      Group CEO, Artefact
    • Hélène Dore
      Global Chief Data and Analytics Officer, L'Oréal
  46. 16:20 – 16:40Accelerate Stage

    From Legacy to Intelligent Logistics: TFG Transfracht’s Journey to Power Container Logistics with Low-Code and Agentic AI

    TFG Transfracht is shaping the digital future of container logistics with its proprietary Albatros Management System, replacing the company's legacy central Transport Management System. Leveraging low-code technologies and Agentic AI powered by Workato, TFG automates and integrates order management, dispatching, and transport operations, building a flexible and sustainable IT landscape. With Workato's AI capabilities, TFG is moving beyond rule-based automation toward intelligent, autonomous decision-making across its logistics workflows, from AI-driven exception handling and predictive process orchestration to autonomous data routing across ports, rail operators, customs authorities, and freight partners.

    • Austin Cowan
      Agentic AI, Workato
    • Guido Niermann
      Head of IT, DB Intermodal Services
  47. 16:40 – 17:00Unknown

    Upcoming

    • Dr. Christian Nagel
      Partner, Earlybird VC
  48. 16:40 – 17:10Accelerate Stage

    You Can't Scale What You Can't See: How Business Leaders Are Turning AI Observability Into Competitive Advantage

    Your AI feature is live. Your dashboards are green. And yet - token spend has tripled, customer trust is eroding, and you'll find out from the funnel report on Thursday. Every enterprise is launching AI. The harder question is whether anyone can see if it's actually working. This session explores why AI observability has become the missing link between AI ambition and competitive advantage - and how forward-thinking organisations are using it to track model performance, control runaway costs, govern agent behaviour, and prove business impact in a single unified view. You will leave with a practical framework for building the visibility layer your AI strategy needs to scale with confidence - and four questions your board will ask that you'll know how to answer.

    • James Henderson
      Head of Strategic Technology Partnerships, EMEA, Datadog
  49. 16:50 – 17:10Transformation Stage

    Goodbye Bots – Hello Agents: How Agentic AI Redefines Customer Experience

    The era of Agentic AI has begun. In customer service, this means moving beyond static FAQ bots — towards intelligent, autonomous AI agents that understand, reason, and act. Discover how Agentic AI is already being used in today’s contact centers to resolve customer inquiries, empower employees, and streamline operations. Markus Ring  reveals how modern AI agents independently interact with systems, leverage contextual data, and collaborate seamlessly with service teams — not as a vision of the future, but as a reality happening today. Gain real-world insights, actionable learnings, and a glimpse into how Agentic AI is fundamentally transforming customer experience,  right now.

    • Markus Ring
      Director AI Transformation, NiCECognigy
  50. 17:00 – 17:40Growth Stage

    Procurement Journey-to-Excellence: Building Best-in-Class Procurement with AI and eProcurement

    Strategic closing session: how AI and eProcurement become differentiators in a sustainable best-in-class procurement journey.

    • Andreas Schulz
      CEO, AURETIS Procurement
  51. 17:00 – 17:20Future Stage

    Upcoming

    • Cornelius Frey
      Co-Founder, CEO, NucleusLinks, Opinary
  52. 17:00 – 17:20Advantage Stage

    How to optimize your online presence in the LLM era

    Your buyers are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for recommendations - is your brand showing up? We will walk you through the practical playbook for optimizing your online presence in the LLM era: what's changed, what still works, and what you need to do differently to win organic visibility in 2025 and beyond.

    • Mat Golubović
      CEO, Founder, Omnius
  53. 17:10 – 17:30Accelerate Stage

    The New Change Equation: Humans, Agents, and the Leaders Who Bridge Them

    When your workforce includes agents that act without being asked, everything you know about leading change needs an upgrade. This masterclass challenges executives to rethink three foundational assumptions of enterprise leadership - The hierarchy assumption, The change recipient assumption., The control assumption.Drawing on real-world experience building and scaling an AI ecosystem in a European media context, and developing executive-level AI governance frameworks, this session moves beyond theory to give participants a practical new mental model for leading in the agentic era.

    • Deepak Alse
      Chief Data AI and Analytics Officer, ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE
  54. 17:10 – 17:30Transformation Stage

    AI Doesn't Scale. Momentum Does. How Vodafone Intelligent Solutions (VOIS) Turned Experimentation into Enterprise Adoption.

    When AI first shows up inside a business, it doesn't create scale. It creates activity. Everyone experiments: different tools, different ideas, a lot of motion, but very little that actually sticks. At Vodafone Intelligent Solutions (VOIS), what changed wasn't the technology. It was how we approached the work. We stopped thinking about AI as something to layer onto existing processes and started using it to rethink work right to left, focused on outcomes. We made it real early with outputs, not slides. We put subject matter experts into the build, not on the sidelines. And we created high-intensity moments in our Agentic Reinvention Lab where people could see how work actually changes. That's when it shifted. From isolated experimentation to something the business started pulling towards itself. This isn't a story about deploying AI. It's about what it takes to build momentum around reinvention, and why, once that momentum exists, scale follows.

    • Austin Cowan
      Agentic AI, Workato
    • Natalie Longhurst
      Leading The EDGE, VOIS
  55. 17:30 – 17:50Advantage Stage

    From Reactive to Proactive: How AI is Transforming B2B Wholesale Sales

    Wholesale distribution — an industry responsible for 1 in 5 dollars of global production — is under pressure: shrinking margins, labour shortages, and outdated software. Yet most distributors are sitting on a goldmine of untapped ERP data. In this session, Benedikt Nolte (Co-Founder & CEO, Plato) and a customer from the distribution industry share how AI is shifting sales teams from reactive order-takers to proactive, data-driven sellers — with concrete use cases in churn detection, cross-selling, automated quoting, and ERP workflow automation. Attendees leave with a practical framework for where AI creates immediate ROI in B2B sales.

    • Benedikt Nolte
      Co-Founder, Plato
    • Murat Yücel
      Managing Director, Meesenburg
    • Timo Burkat
      Head of E-Commerce, Meesenburg
  56. 17:30 – 17:50Future Stage

    Grounding AI: Ecological, European, Responsible

    AI is frequently criticized for its environmental footprint and its effects on mental health and society. In this session, we will explore practical strategies to mitigate these impacts.

    • Wolfgang Oels
      COO, Ecosia
  57. 17:40 – 18:00Transformation Stage

    From AI Hype to Real Impact: How contextual AI is supporting MANN+HUMMEL's inventory strategy

    Enterprise AI cannot deliver real business value without the right foundation. Discover how Process Intelligence provides the critical business context AI needs to succeed. Then, see the impact firsthand as MANN+HUMMEL shares how they deployed an AI-powered agent to identify material-level inventory risks, generate targeted action recommendations, reduce excess stock, and measurably boost planning quality.

    • Manuel Haug
      CTO, Celonis
    • Jean-Marc Erieau
      Director of Process Intelligence and Digital Transformation, MANN+HUMMEL
  58. 17:40 – 18:00Accelerate Stage

    Traffic Signals: Navigating AI Transformation in the Real World

    AI transformation doesn't fail because of a lack of ideas. It slows down because people can’t tell what’s actually working. It is surprisingly easy to mistake motion for progress and activity for impact. This talk focuses on the signals that matter. What does a “green light” really look like in an organization? And what are the signs that things are quietly heading in the wrong direction, even when everything looks busy? It shows how to decide when to move faster or slow down, and when to change direction, because by the time everyone agrees, you are usually already standing still.

    • Imai Jen-La Plante
      Director of AI, Yettel Srbija
  59. 17:50 – 18:10Advantage Stage

    Top Shelf AI: How Kaufland Mixes Enterprise IT and Self-Service

    AI strategy must move beyond a single tool, requiring a flexible mix of Enterprise IT and Self-Service solutions like Gemini. This technological breadth needs to be paired with upskilling employees from Data Users to Data Analysts for successful adoption.

    • Simon Fink
      Director Data & AI, Kaufland
  60. 17:50 – 18:10Future Stage

    GEO: The New Reality of Discovery

    Search is changing fundamentally. Traditional SEO strategies are losing relevance as generative AI systems increasingly become the interface between brands and users. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) reflects this new reality of how information is discovered online. In her Keynote Stefanie Söhnchen, VP Strategy / Lead Digital PIABO Communications, explains how startups and companies can adapt their visibility strategies for the age of AI-driven discovery. She explores how generative search works, how brands can remain visible in AI-generated answers, and what this means for content, authority, and digital communication. A practical session for founders, marketers, and product teams who want to understand how discovery, visibility, and brand relevance are evolving in the era of generative AI.

    • Stefanie Söhnchen
      VP Digital, PIABO
  61. 18:00 – 18:20Transformation Stage

    The next Era of AI

    This session explores the next era of AI: the shift from chatbots that answer questions to intelligent agents that can take action, automate workflows, and support increasingly complex tasks. We’ll look at what this technological shift means specifically for German companies - from productivity and competitiveness to new ways of working across industries. The keynote will also examine how businesses can move from experimentation to real business impact with AI.

    • Johannes Foertsch
      GTM Dach, OpenAI
  62. 18:00 – 18:20Accelerate Stage

    Unlocking Enterprise Intelligence with Knowledge Graphs

    Is your company’s most valuable asset walking out the door as experts retire? In the era of agentic AI, a company’s ultimate competitive advantage is no longer the underlying AI model, but its own proprietary data and highly specific business logic. Join Artefact experts Sebastian and Michael for a fast-paced, 20-minute Masterclass that demystifies Knowledge Graphs - the essential “context layer” connecting your scattered knowledge, business logic and expertise into a single, intelligent structure. We will explore how modern Large Language Models finally make creating these graphs feasible at scale, transforming fragmented information into an always-on digital expert. Attendees will discover how Knowledge Graphs drive operational resilience, streamline processes, and power automated AI assistants, highlighted by a dynamic visual showcase of an HR post-merger integration. Don’t let your implicit expertise fade away; learn how to securely turn your tacit business knowledge into a scalable, actionable asset. In this 45-minute masterclass, you will learn how Knowledge Graphs, enhhanced by GenAI, transform tacit knowledge into a structured, connected, and continuously updated asset. By linking processes with business logic, the data, and people, they create a dynamic foundation for how work is actually done. What you gain: faster access to reliable knowledge, reduced dependency on individual experts, and the ability to analyze and act on complex processes in real time. This translates into e.g, quicker onboarding of new employees, more consistent execution, better decision-making, and a significant reduction in operational risk. Typical use cases include org changes e.g. in post-merger integration (process comparison, redundancy detection), regulatory change (dependency mapping, impact analysis), and managing complex processes with multiple rules and exceptions. This session is for business and transformation leaders, process owners, and digital or AI executives looking to scale knowledge, increase efficiency, and make their organization more resilient.

    • Sebastian Schirber
      Partner Data & AI, Artefact
    • Michael Völske
      Director Data Science, Artefact
  1. 09:40 – 10:00Accelerate Stage

    How to avoid agent sprawl in the age of AI

    In the ever-evolving digital landscape, organizations are increasingly relying on various software agents-automated tools, bots, and AI-based systems -to streamline operations, enhance efficiency and improve customer experiences. In this talk, I'd want to discuss business impact of agent sprawl and offer practical strategies to address it.

    • Linda Kohl
      Director Field Engineering, Databricks
  2. 09:40 – 10:00Advantage Stage

    AI in Regulated Software Development

    Can product compliance be leveraged as an advantage for AI?

    • Dr. Steffen Wachenfeld
      CPO, AI, Dentsply Sirona
  3. 09:40 – 10:20Growth Stage

    The Neural Network of Procurement: How Knowledge Graphs Connect Data Silos and Strengthen Resilience in Volatile Times

    Procurement data is often spread across disconnected systems, making it difficult to spot risks, understand interdependencies, and strengthen resilience early enough. This session shows how knowledge graphs can connect siloed data and how linking them with LLMs can create more reliable context for forecasting disruptions, assessing impact, and supporting better procurement decisions.

    • Stefan Franke
      PMO Strategy & Transformation, fmr. VP Procurement Excellence, igefa
  4. 09:40 – 10:00Transformation Stage

    Reimagining Power: The C-Suite in the Age of AI

    AI is rapidly improving and already capable of performing many cognitive and office-related tasks, which will significantly impact jobs, including management roles. However, there is very little perspective on how this AI-led transformation will impact the C-Level. The presentation will focus on the hypothesis that four key human skills will remain essential for managers: Understanding AI (AI literacy), defining organizational purpose, making human-centered hiring decisions, and exercising judgment in uncertain or unlikely scenarios. These capabilities are considered crucial because they rely on human reasoning, values, and intuition that AI cannot fully replicate (yet).

    • Burkhard von Spreckelsen
      Chief Development Officer, Elmos
  5. 09:40 – 10:00Future Stage

    Quick and slow - creating value in core processes while keeping mangement entertained

    AI projects are 80% infrastructure/integration work and 20% AI - so the journey begins after the PoC. How do you keep management buy-in on the journey, while "everyone else" is out there showcasing AI success stories? What is a winning approach that delivers a good mixture of transformation, tooling, training and governance to keep value up and digestable in management briefings.

    • Andreas Mauczka
      Chief Digital Officer, Austria Presse Agentur (APA)
  6. 10:00 – 10:20Accelerate Stage

    Scaling AI beyond pilots: E2E Process Redesign for Real Business Impact

    Most organizations have run AI pilots. Few have turned them into lasting competitive advantage - or measurable P&L impact. This session cuts through the noise and shares what it actually takes to redesign core business processes with AI at the center, unlocking value pools that fragmented use cases simply cannot reach. Drawing on real client work across industrial and enterprise settings, you will walk away with a sharper view of where value hides, what separates scalable AI from one-off experiments, and how to build the case for transformation that sticks.

    • Guido Vetter
      Partner, Bain & Company
  7. 10:00 – 10:20Future Stage

    Storytelling as a Growth Engine: How AI Leaders Use Narrative to Drive Revenue

    Every company right now is racing to launch AI. The products are faster, smarter, and more powerful than anything we've seen before. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most AI GTM strategies are failing, not because of the technology, but because of the story. In an era of infinite AI tools and shrinking attention spans, the companies that win are not the ones with the best features. They are the ones with the most compelling narrative. Story is what moves buyers from curiosity to conviction. It's what builds trust before a demo is ever booked. And in the age of AI, it's the only sustainable competitive advantage that a machine cannot replicate. In this masterclass, Angeley Mullins, seasoned CMO, CGO, and founder of Aetheris Ventures, will show you how the world's most successful AI-driven companies are using storytelling as their primary growth engine. Drawing from her experience scaling startups and leading GTM at Amazon, Intuit, and GoDaddy, she will break down a practical framework for building a narrative-first GTM motion that drives pipeline, accelerates adoption, and creates category leadership. You will leave with a clear understanding of why your current GTM messaging may be stalling, how to architect a story that resonates at every stage of the buyer journey, and how to align your entire go-to-market around a single, powerful human signal. The technology is table stakes. The narrative is the strategy

    • Angeley Mullins
      Chief Growth Officer, Ninox Software
  8. 10:00 – 10:20Advantage Stage

    From Awareness to Enterprise Adoption: How Swarovski Scaled AI Capability in Practice

    Facilitated Q&A masterclass (20 min input + 20 min discussion) on how Swarovski moved from AI awareness to enterprise adoption in day-to-day work. Highlights include how the AI literacy program started and scaled, what changed in “AI Literacy 2.0” to drive real behavior change, and how Responsible AI + governance enabled a controlled Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout with adoption tracking to prove value.

    • Aleksandar Lombard
      Head of Data and AI Excellence, Swarovski
  9. 10:00 – 10:20Transformation Stage

    My Vision for an AI-Native Business and How To Build It

    Beyond the hype and the pilot projects lies the real challenge: building a business that is truly AI-native. This requires more than new technology; it demands a new vision for the organization itself. This is not a technical talk but a strategic playbook for leaders, sharing hard-won lessons on organizational design, cultural transformation, and the future of leadership in the AI era. Join Qihua to learn how to stop just doing AI and start building a future-proof organization.

    • Qihua Wang
      SVP Strategy & AI, Lagardere
  10. 10:40 – 11:00Transformation Stage

    Successful AI Transformation Starts With Aligned Teams

    This session explores why AI's biggest enterprise ROI won't come from individual productivity gains, but from accelerating team alignment. You'll learn how centralizing context across people, agents and AI tools reduces the "alignment tax" that slows teams down, and leave with a practical framework for shifting from task management to context management - so your teams can move faster together, not just individually.

    • Grisha Pavlotsky
      Chief Transformation Officer, Miro
  11. 10:40 – 11:00Advantage Stage

    From Pilot to P&L: Scaling AI with Real EBIT Impact in Industrial Organizations

    Most industrial companies have run AI pilots. Few have turned them into scalable, EBIT-relevant capabilities. This session shares hard-won lessons from rolling out AI initiatives at a global industrial group — what it takes to move from isolated use cases to an integrated AI operating model. We'll cover how to prioritize for financial impact, why 70% of the challenge is organizational (not technical), and what the path toward an AI Native organization actually looks like in practice.

    • Tim Kappel
      Associate Partner, mesakumo
  12. 10:40 – 11:20Growth Stage

    Automation Self-Service in Procurement: Use Cases, Adoption and Implementation Stories

    This session shows how Ergo embedded automation development, including AI and RPA, as a structural part of procurement. It also shares how the team approaches developing a new negotiation agent and what others can learn from that journey.

    • Katharina Gehrigk
      Global Head of Performance & Digitalization, ERGO
  13. 10:40 – 11:00Future Stage

    The Missing Link in Healthcare AI: Connecting Payers and Providers for Real Impact

    While AI is rapidly advancing across healthcare, most initiatives remain confined to isolated use cases—limiting their true impact. This session explores why the real transformation lies beyond individual organizations: in connecting payer and provider data to unlock a longitudinal view of patient journeys. Building on this foundation, the session highlights how different types of AI can reshape care along the entire pathway: Perceptive AI integrates clinical, operational, and real-world data to create a continuous, real-time understanding of patient status. Predictive and generative AI translate this data into insights—anticipating risks, supporting clinical decisions, and simplifying documentation. Agentic AI acts on these insights, guiding patients and clinicians through next-best actions, enabling proactive interventions and more coordinated care. Physical AI extends this into the real world, optimizing workflows, logistics, and resource allocation within care delivery. Together, these capabilities move AI beyond isolated tools toward a connected, system-level intelligence—enabling better patient flow, earlier interventions, and more effective use of resources across the healthcare ecosystem.

    • Dr. Alexander Schellinger
      Head for Digital Transformation, Siemens Healthineers
  14. 10:40 – 11:00Accelerate Stage

    AI for Data: Autonomous Data Platforms as the Critical Success Factor for Agentic AI

    This session shows how enterprises can become truly future-ready by making their data instantly accessible to AI and to the next generation of autonomous agents. We will explore how Oracle Autonomous Database with 26ai consolidates fragmented database workloads, embeds vector search natively, and unifies structured and unstructured data through the AI Lakehouse and a Catalog of Catalogs - all available across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OCI. You will leave with a clear blueprint to accelerate your transformation, simplify your data estate, and unlock agentic AI on top of trusted enterprise data.

    • Martin Blach
      VP, Strategic Data Platform Transformation, Oracle
  15. 11:00 – 11:20Accelerate Stage

    Successful AI Transformation is not just about technology it’s about Agile Leadership.

    Uncover how the agile mindset empowers leaders to navigate their organizations towards Human+AI powered growth. How adaptive leadership, grounded in agility, drives collaboration, innovation and value creation in a world reshaped by artificial intelligence.

    • Beatriz Ahle
      Head of AI & Data Transformation, Beiersdorf
  16. 11:00 – 11:20Transformation Stage

    Sovereignty Through Specialization: Why Europe's AI Edge Won't Come From Copying Silicon Valley

    The global AI race is often framed as a contest of scale: bigger models, more compute, broader capabilities. But for Europe's most critical sectors, this framing is a trap. In this keynote, Ilhan Scheer, Co-CEO of Aleph Alpha, makes the case that Europe's path to AI leadership lies not in replicating US-style foundation models, but in building specialized large language models (SLMs) purpose-built for high-stakes, highly regulated domains – from public administration to defense and industrial operations. Drawing on his dual experience as a founder-turned-enterprise-leader and co-author of Decision Intelligence (Wiley), Ilhan shares how Aleph Alpha is turning sovereign AI from a policy talking point into operational reality – and why specialization, not generalization, is what will define Europe's AI competitiveness.

    • Ilhan Scheer
      Co-CEO, Aleph Alpha
  17. 11:00 – 11:20Future Stage

    From Sensational Hype to Sustainable Transformation: How (Generative) AI is Revolutionizing Rail Infrastructure

    We are shaping a new world with data, analytics, and artificial intelligence. When used responsibly, AI holds immense potential – also for Deutsche Bahn, where Generative AI is already accelerating processes, reducing bureaucracy, optimizing construction projects, and enabling a smarter, more sustainable rail infrastructure. Pascale Schäfer (DB InfraGO) and Florian Dohmann (Birds on Mars) will take you behind the scenes of this ongoing intelligent transformation, showcasing pioneering real-world use cases and an overarching data and AI strategy that bridges innovation with tangible impact.

    • Pascale Schäfer
      Head of Analytics and AI Solutions, Deutsche Bahn - InfraGO
  18. 11:00 – 11:20Advantage Stage

    Investing in AI - learnings from a decade

    Talk about learnings of 10 years of investing in AI-native companies Also show variety of business cases and applications beyond ChatGPT in biology, healthcare, industrial applications, robotics, finance etc.

    • Adrian Locher
      Founder and General Partner, Merantix Capital
  19. 11:40 – 12:00Future Stage

    AI as a Colleague: Redefining Organizational Hierarchy and the Future of Human Skills.

    This session explores how AI is fundamentally reshaping organizational structures by shifting the focus from simple automation to "collaborative intelligence". We will move beyond the common narrative of task displacement to examine how AI can either erode or enhance the "skill ladder" that develops future leaders

    • Marc-Andreas Albert
      CEO, Board Member, Webedia Germany
  20. 11:40 – 12:20Advantage Stage

    Read-Only AI: Why Your Agents Recommend but Never Act — and the Control Plane to Change That

    Most enterprise AI is read-only: it reasons, it recommends, it summarizes, but it doesn’t act. The gap isn’t the model. It’s the missing layer that lets agents act on live data, inside the systems that actually matter, without breaking governance. In 40 minutes, we’ll map the gap, then build that control layer.

    • Chris Wiechmann
      Principal Solutions Architect, Workato
    • Samuel Farag
      Solutions Consultant, Workato
  21. 11:40 – 12:00Future Stage

    Growing and scaling AI startups; what we can learn from China

    As a General Partner at Speedinvest and head of its corporate program, Marie-Helene works closely with hundreds of portfolio companies and global corporations. Through this, she has developed a sharp, practical understanding of the challenges that arise when startups and large organizations (try to) work together.

    • Marie-Helene Ametsreiter
      General Partner, Speedinvest
  22. 11:40 – 12:00Accelerate Stage

    AI Strategy 2026 - 2029: Act now or watch from the sidelines

    AI can already pass bar exams, resolve software bugs autonomously, and compress analysis processes from days to minutes. The question is no longer whether AI will change your business, but whether you shape that change or get left behind. In this Masterclass, our Founding Partner Kevin Ueckert (dbeyond ai+) shows how artificial intelligence will concretely evolve over the next three years, why only 6% of companies actually see significant value from AI (1), and what these "high performers" are doing differently. You will learn what a real AI transformation involves: from identifying the right use cases to data and technology strategy, change management and employee enablement. No buzzword bingo, no product pitch, just a hands-on roadmap you can start implementing in your own company the very next day. This session is for you if you want to understand how your company can join the few that don't just use AI, but leverage it for real business impact. (1) McKinsey & Company. (2025, November 5)

    • Kevin Ueckert
      Founding Partner, dbeyond ai+ gmbh
  23. 11:40 – 12:00Transformation Stage

    Overcoming the essential challenges to scale (Gen)AI

    Everyone is talking about GenAI. Few are scaling it into real value. In this talk, we explore the five paradoxes that define the next chapter of AI adoption: the more polished the answer, the more average it can become; the more AI enables outcomes, the less ownership feels clear; the faster innovation moves, the harder systems and markets can absorb it; the more data AI consumes, the more human agency is at risk; and the more leaders want better decisions, the more legacy decision processes must be redesigned. Grounded in current market signals and practical transformation insight, this session gives AI leaders a memorable framework for moving beyond hype and building AI that delivers conviction, accountability, and value creation

    • Amaryllis Liampoti
      MD & Partner, BCG X
  24. 12:00 – 12:20Growth Stage

    Upcoming

    • Jens Polomski
      CEO, AI Marketer, SnipKI
  25. 12:00 – 12:20Transformation Stage

    The Innovator's Mindset: Emotionally Intelligent Leadership for an AI-powered Future

    Andreas will talk about how leaders can drive an innovator’s mindset. He will detail how to lead with greater empathy, purpose, inspiration, and connection to empower people and build high performing teams. Innovation requires more than just IQ and technical skills. It’s a cognitive process, but it’s also an emotional one. Research has found that innovation has just as much to do with determination, grit, and psychological safety as it does with pure intellect--qualities that are squarely in the realm of emotional intelligence. This session is intended to help you maximize your cognitive efficiency to supercharge your focus, reativity, and innovation and that of your team. Andreas will share insights on: • Explore the connection between emotional intelligence, innovation, and inspiring leadership • Develop mechanisms to improve personal emotional intelligence and team emotional intelligence • Learn how to increase grit and resilience, and foster a creative team culture

    • Dr. Andreas E. Wagner
      EMEA Data & AI Lead, AWS
  26. 12:00 – 12:20Accelerate Stage

    The Future of Software Engineering

    The session shows how the Software Engineering job is evolving with the introduction of AI coding tools, the current trends, the actual key challenges for software engineers and organizations, and how organizations and engineers must prepare themselves.

    • Maxim Romanovsky
      Head of AI & Product Engineering, VP Deutsche Bank
  27. 12:30 – 12:50Future Stage

    Adoption is the link between AI availability and impact

    Why long-term competitiveness is driven not by AI tools alone, but by people’s behavior, capabilities, and proficiency in using them

    • Philipp Günther
      Director AI Enablement & Adoption, Bosch
  28. 12:30 – 12:50Accelerate Stage

    What Happens When AI Actually Works? Why We’re Not Prepared for What Comes Next

    AI transformation is often framed as a question of technology, scaling, and efficiency. But what happens when AI actually works? Work doesn’t disappear—it becomes more complex. As simple tasks are automated, humans are left with higher cognitive load, greater responsibility, and fundamentally changing roles. Drawing on real transformation experience—including her organization’s own “Client Zero” journey—Deborah Hüller challenges common assumptions about AI. Instead of focusing solely on tools and use cases, she explores what AI transformation really does to organizations—and why we’re far less prepared for it than we think. The key insight: successful AI transformation is not just about better technology. It’s about redesigning work, roles, and how humans and machines interact and collaborate—from the ground up.

    • Deborah Hüller
      Partner, IBM Consulting
  29. 12:30 – 12:50Transformation Stage

    From Research Lab to Global Adoption: Building Toward Visual Intelligence

    what happens after a breakthrough model launch scaling demand overnight working with global enterprises regional differences in AI adoption how the ecosystem changed from 2023 → 2026

    • Sebastian Schröder
      GTM, Black Forest Labs
  30. 12:30 – 12:50Advantage Stage

    Reimagining Customer Experience and Brand Connection Through AI Avatars and Digital Identity

    This session explores how AI avatars can be applied in a practical way to transform customer interactions and strengthen brand connection across marketing, sales, and service. You’ll learn how to identify high-impact use cases, design human-centric customer journeys, and deploy conversational avatars and agents that deliver personalized, real-time experiences aligned with your brand. It will also cover how to build trust and ensure effective adoption - so you can create consistent, meaningful brand experiences that drive measurable results.

    • David Bennett
      CEO, Founder, Mimic Production
  31. 12:50 – 13:10Transformation Stage

    From Process to Experience: Designing Intelligent, Human-Centered Operating Models

    Experience Strategy has the potential to fundamentally reshape how organizations operate—yet for many, it still feels abstract and out of reach. This session brings a clear and practical perspective on how to turn that promise into something tangible. It explores how data and AI can connect processes into seamless, adaptive experiences—while staying close to the people who use and run them every day. Because in the end, transformation is not about designing the perfect model—it’s about making it work in reality. You’ll leave with pragmatic perspectives on how to simplify complexity, align ownership, and build momentum toward scalable impact.

    • Sara Geising-Eggers
      VP Global Enterprise Solutions Experience Strategy, Merck Group
  32. 12:50 – 13:10Advantage Stage

    From AI Experiments to Scalable Impact: Building a Content Engine That Actually Moves

    This session shows how to turn scattered AI pilots into measurable business results through a smarter approach to your Content Supply Chain. You'll leave with a practical framework to assess your current maturity, prioritize the right use cases, and build the governance and change management foundations that make AI scale — not just in theory, but in production.

    • Dennis Looks
      Senior Director Digital Strategy, IBM iX
  33. 12:50 – 13:10Future Stage

    Innovation, Transformation, and AI: Everywhere, All at Once?

    In this session I’ll share my experience on how to approach innovation and transformation together, with concrete examples from the automotive industry. You’ll see why AI is so exciting for users and engineers, and what really matters when selecting the right use cases and solutions.

    • Olivier Flebus
      Digital & AI Leader, Advanced Innovation, Schaeffler
  34. 12:50 – 13:10Accelerate Stage

    Walk the AI Talk - from Vision to Impact

    Elaborating on the role of transformation to actually embed AI into the organization along with 2-3 tangible use cases from the marketing organization

    • Luise Mohn
      Director, Analytics & AI, Cosnova
  35. 12:50 – 13:10Growth Stage

    Your Brand DNA Is the Prompt No One Else Has

    We're all figuring out AI as we go. But one thing is becoming clearer: the brands making the most meaningful progress aren't the ones with the biggest tech budgets — they're the ones who deeply understand who they are. This masterclass is an exploration of that idea. How might your brand's history, consumer truths, and distinctive codes become the raw material for smarter AI work? How do we move from data and insight to activations that actually feel alive — and on-brand? No definitive answers. Just a honest, hands-on look at where Brand DNA and AI intersect — and what becomes possible when you bring both together.

    • Eliah Werner
      Vice President Brand, SIXT
  36. 14:10 – 14:30Advantage Stage

    From Pilot to Millions: What Actually Scales AI

    Most AI initiatives die between a successful pilot and real business impact — only 8% of large-scale AI transformations succeed. This session follows the money: what gets spent, what gets wasted, and what finally pays off when scaling AI from pilot to triple-digit millions in ARR. You'll learn the three costs nobody budgets for, why organizational restructuring delivers twice the gains of technology improvements, and a practical playbook for the five highest-ROI investments most companies are still ignoring.

    • Mirza Besirovic
      Director of Product, AI Agents, Zendesk
  37. 14:10 – 14:30Growth Stage

    From Fragmented Procurement Data to Scalable AI: Building the Digital Foundation for Intelligent Procurement

    Many procurement teams want to scale AI, but fragmented systems and weak data foundations hold them back. This session explores how procurement can improve data quality, harmonize processes, and reduce complexity; and where targeted AI use cases can create value faster than large-scale transformation programs.

    • Nicolaj Bruun
      VP Global Services Category, The Adecco Group
  38. 14:10 – 14:30Transformation Stage

    Solving the AI Hallucination Problem for Global Enterprise

    For AI to realise its potential and to fully automate process and create agentic workflows, there can be no room for error. A 5% error rate renders the entire system unreliable. This presentation dives into the collaboration with Columbia University’s Neuroscience Institute to build an AI system that delivers zero critical hallucinations. In this session you will learn: - How AI can act as a superviser to ensure it can operate in high-stakes environments reliably - Discover how Navan Cognition mirrors the human brain’s neural connections by deploying a network of specialist agents rather than relying on a single, error-prone generalist model - A practical guide to transitioning from simple chatbots to a deployable AI workforce

    • Dane Molter
      SVP, Navan Group Travel Marketplace, Navan
  39. 14:10 – 14:30Future Stage

    The gap between AI enthusiasm and AI expertise, and the importance of the healthcare sector.

    Masterclass 1: From Pilot to Practice, A 3-Phase Roadmap for Responsible AI Implementation Most organizations know they need AI. Few know how to make it stick. This Masterclass offers a concrete, field-tested three-phase framework for implementing AI in complex, regulated environments, with pharma as the primary lens. Phase I covers how to identify quick wins that build internal trust without creating regulatory risk: data audits, compliance checkpoints, and the first use cases that deliver measurable proof of value within weeks. Phase II addresses the harder challenge of scaling beyond the pilot: knowledge transfer, new role definitions (AI Officer, CAIO), governance rituals, and the cultural shift that turns skeptics into multipliers. Phase III tackles what most frameworks ignore: how to make AI audit-proof, operationally stable, and genuinely measurable in day-to-day routines, aligned with the EU AI Act. Participants leave with a practical orientation for all three phases, including the KPIs that actually matter, the organizational structures that hold, and the common pitfalls, from shadow AI to change fatigue, that derail even well-funded initiatives. All topics and examples are up for discussion. Masterclass 2: AI in Healthcare, Why Optimization Is Not Enough AI is already delivering results in healthcare: pattern recognition in oncology, radiology, dermatology. The wins are real. But the system around those wins remains structurally broken, and optimizing a broken system is not transformation. This Masterclass examines what genuine disruption in healthcare could look like, and what it actually requires. The convergence of AI, sensor technology, robotics, and biotechnology opens possibilities that go far beyond cost reduction or headcount planning. Patient communication data alone, largely untapped today, could reshape product development, logistics, and care delivery. But none of that happens without intention, governance, and a clear framework for how AI is deployed and communicated. The session explores where the real leverage points are, why most current healthcare AI initiatives are set up to underperform, and what a "Manual for Readiness" would need to contain: not just technical deployment, but the human competence and organizational clarity to match it. All topics and examples are up for discussion.

    • Michael Keusgen
      CEO, Founder, Ella Media
  40. 14:10 – 14:30Accelerate Stage

    Enterprise agentic AI strategy and integration - what actually works

    This session shows how to implement enterprise agentic AI systems that with strong scalable foundational systems design, that goes beyond AI pilot projects to building systems that drive organisational AI integration and accelerate business growth. (content and details to be developed and refined)

    • Jay Mohan Kaul
      Global AI Strategy, Data and Analytics Lead, Sanofi Opella Healthcare
  41. 14:30 – 14:50Transformation Stage

    Every Enterprise Process Is Already Legacy

    Every business process in your enterprise is legacy—not because it's old, but because it was designed for a world where humans had to do the reading, routing, and deciding. If you designed any process from scratch today, knowing what AI can do, would you build it the way it currently runs? For almost every process in every enterprise, the answer is no. Camunda CEO Jakob Freund will explain why the Great Re-Engineering has begun, and how to get started.

    • Jakob Freund
      Co-Founder & CEO, Camunda
  42. 14:30 – 14:50Advantage Stage

    AI for humans

    The biggest hurdles for AI transformation is not the technology anymore. It's actually listening to and working with the people who are meant to benefit from it.

    • Gregor Schmalzried
      AI Expert and Podcaster, Der KI-Podcast (ARD)
  43. 14:30 – 14:50Accelerate Stage

    From Cloud Shift to AI Shift — Why Your IT Landscape Needs a New Blueprint

    Most enterprises have spent years moving to the cloud — and many are still mid-journey. Now AI is raising the bar again, demanding changes that go far beyond compute power: real-time data availability, new platform architectures, rethought security models, and infrastructure that doesn't just run workloads but enables learning at scale. In this keynote, Alwin Penner — Global Head of Cloud at adesso, one of Europe's largest IT service providers — draws on hundreds of enterprise IT transformations to answer the question every CIO and CTO now faces: What must actually change in my IT landscape when AI moves from experimentation to core capability? He explores why migration today is no longer about moving data but about making contextual intelligence accessible — why legacy systems must stop being silos and start becoming skills for autonomous agents — and what IT leaders can learn from the cloud era, and where they need to think entirely differently. A practical compass for CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders who want to build infrastructure that is not just cloud-ready, but AI-ready.

    • Alwin Penner
      Global Head of Cloud, Adesso
  44. 14:30 – 14:50Future Stage

    Architecting the Digital Backbone: Proprietary AI, Cloud, and Digital Solutions for Global Supply Chain Orchestration

    In an era of unprecedented volatility, true competitive advantage lies in owning your supply chain logic. This session breaks down the strategic blueprint used to move beyond manual silos into a high-IQ, Cloud-native digital ecosystem. We will dissect our field-tested transformation of Demand and Capacity Management through custom Cloud/AI solutions and reveal the roadmap for the next frontier: a unified Global Command Center. Participants will gain a framework for integrating real-time alerting, predictive monitoring, and advanced scenario planning—shifting the supply chain from a reactive function to a proactive engine for growth.

    • Hadi Eghlidi
      Head of SCM AI & Digital Hub, VAT Group
  45. 15:00 – 15:20Transformation Stage

    AI is not enough: How to prioritize outcomes over tech

    This session will show how to treat AI as a means to achieve a tangible outcome on the basis of decades of management experience in the physical security industry. You will get practical examples that will help you make the next AI adoption project a success.

    • Florian Matusek
      Director AI Strategy, Genetec
  46. 15:00 – 15:20Future Stage

    Transforming a Company to AI First: Real Learnings from a CEO Perspective

    Getting the full company to leverage AI is a tough job: AI has tremendous potential, but it triggers resistance in the organization and many employees get into a mode of “wait and see”, hoping that it’s just a trend that will pass by. I will share from a CEO perspective what worked for GMX, what didn’t, where we see most potential and where we are realizing this potential already.

    • Michael Hagenau
      CEO, GMX
  47. 15:00 – 15:20Advantage Stage

    Agentic AI in the Enterprise: Real Lessons in People, Technology and Culture

    Deploying Agentic AI at scale is about far more than technology. Drawing on hands-on experience leading one of Europe's largest enterprise AI transformations, this session shares honest lessons learned navigating the human, technical and cultural challenges that determine whether AI initiatives succeed or stall. You will leave with a practical framework for aligning your teams, selecting the right use cases and building an organizational culture that turns AI ambition into measurable business impact.

    • Firas Ben Hassan
      Head of Agentic AI Solutions Hub, Allianz Technology
  48. 15:00 – 15:40Growth Stage

    Stop Piloting. Start Scaling – The Procurement AI Playbook for Industrial Mid-Size Companies

    Europe won't win by building the best AI. It will win by using it first, using it boldly, and using it where it matters most: Procurement. This session is for leaders who are done waiting – and ready to execute. And for those who are still unsure where to begin, struggling with the first requirements document, or wondering if their data is good enough: this session is especially for you.

    • Johannes Groll
      Co-Founder & Managing Director, Tacto
    • Catharina Golz
      CPO, Royal Nedschroef
  49. 15:00 – 15:20Accelerate Stage

    'Trust me I have AI': The role of trust in the AI transformation

    For forty years, IT relied on absolute rules. Generative AI has shattered that contract, trading predictability for probabilistic "best guesses." This session tackles the enterprise trust crisis: - The Control Vertigo: Moving past traditional rules-based compliance to manage black-box systems prone to the "plausibility trap." - Engineered Trust: How to implement a flexible "sovereignty dial" that establishes exactly where autonomous AI ends and human accountability begins.

    • Jakob Sprenger
      Lead Product Manager, Docusign
  50. 15:20 – 15:40Accelerate Stage

    Intent is all you need. Experience is how you win

    AI will change everything about how business works. It won’t change why it works. Every customer has an intent. Every organization exists to reduce the distance between that intent and its outcome. The question is, will you own the experience that closes it? Speaker Bio: Michael P. Pfeiffer is VP of AI & Agentic Commerce at Shopware, where he leads the exploration and development of agentic systems that will redefine commerce by 2030. He is also shaping the Agentic Commerce Alliance into a global platform that enables commerce brand leaders to adopt agentic commerce early and safely.

    • Michael Pfeiffer
      VP AI & Agentic Commerce, Shopware
  51. 15:20 – 15:40Future Stage

    From Wrong Parts to Right Revenue: AI-Driven Spare Parts Identification in Manufacturing

    Misidentified spare parts cost manufacturers time, money, and customer trust. In this candid masterclass, Anna Lukasson-Herzig unpacks a real customer case — how nyris tackled spare parts identification head-on and helped protect and scale one of manufacturing's most profitable business lines: after-sales service.

    • Dr. Anna Lukasson-Herzig
      CEO, Founder, Nyris
    • Ulrich Kruse
      Investment Manager, TRUMPF Venture
  52. 15:20 – 15:40Advantage Stage

    AI as Infrastructure: Why the Next Generation of Market Leaders Is Built Differently

    Most AI transformations fail because they treat AI as an add-on rather than a foundation. This session argues that the real shift is architectural: from layering AI onto existing structures to building AI-native organizations from the ground up. Drawing on 25 years of platform building experience at companies like N26, Vivy, and ShareTheMeal, Christian shares what it takes to design AI as infrastructure across product, data, and decision-making. Using Tomorrow University as a live case study, he shows how AI-native systems unlock speed, quality, and entirely new ways of operating. The audience will leave with a clear understanding of why traditional approaches fall short, what “AI-native” actually means in practice, and how to rethink their organization to stay competitive in an AI-driven world.

    • Christian Rebernik
      Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences, Founder, CEO
  53. 16:00 – 16:20Accelerate Stage

    From SEO to GEO: How AI Is Rewriting How Your Company Gets Seen, Trusted, and Chosen

    AI systems are now the first place stakeholders, customers, employees, and journalists go to learn about your company - and the answers they receive are no longer something you fully control. This session shows what's actually happening inside AI-generated answers, how leading enterprises are starting to measure and influence their AI visibility, and what every business leader should be doing now to make sure their company shows up - accurately, credibly, and in front of the right audiences - in the AI systems that increasingly shape decisions.

    • Martin Schulze
      Head of Product, UNICEPTA
  54. 16:00 – 16:20Transformation Stage

    Voice Agents in Production: What Deutsche Telekom, Klarna and Revolut Already Know

    Voice AI has moved from pilot to production. In this session, Gordian Braun, Head of Growth Europe at ElevenLabs, breaks down what successful enterprise deployments actually look like — what drives adoption, what kills projects, and why voice is becoming the infrastructure layer for how businesses communicate with customers at scale. With real cases from Deutsche Telekom, Klarna and Revolut.

    • Gordian Braun
      Growth, ElevenLabs