Enterprises have moved past AI pilots, but scaling agentic AI across the business exposes gaps in governance, talent, data readiness, and infrastructure. This keynote draws on IDC research to show where organizations are stalling and what the leaders are doing differently. CIOs and CTOs will leave with a practical framework for closing those gaps and a clearer view of what it takes to move autonomous, adaptive workflows from experiment to enterprise-wide value.

Today’s CIO is expected to modernize the technology estate, control costs, strengthen resilience, and drive growth, all at once and under rising scrutiny. This keynote examines how Canadian technology leaders are balancing those competing priorities, from sequencing modernization investments to managing cyber and third-party risk to funding innovation without losing financial discipline. Attendees will gain a clear lens for aligning technology strategy with business outcomes in an uncertain environment.

Technical debt is usually treated as a cost to be managed, but it can also be a source of strategic advantage. Aging applications, brittle integrations, and legacy infrastructure consume budget and slow every new initiative, including AI. This session reframes debt reduction as a way to free up capacity for innovation. It covers how to measure and prioritize debt, make the business case for paying it down, and use AI-assisted tools to modernize faster and with less risk.

CIOs are under pressure to adopt emerging technologies quickly while keeping governance, cost, and risk firmly in check. This keynote offers an innovation roadmap that treats speed and responsibility as complementary rather than competing goals. Attendees will hear how leading organizations build adaptive operating models, set guardrails that enable experimentation rather than block it, and tie new technology investments to measurable business value and long-term trust.

Technology strategy succeeds or fails on the strength of the people behind it. As automation and AI reshape roles, IT leaders face a widening skills gap alongside retention pressures and changing workforce expectations. This conversation explores how organizations are upskilling and reskilling at scale, creating career paths that keep top talent, and preparing teams to work alongside AI. Attendees will take away practical approaches to building a workforce that is ready for what comes next.

IT teams are drowning in alerts, dashboards, and tickets, while AI workloads add even more complexity to the environment. This fireside chat explores how predictive and agentic AI are shifting IT operations from reactive firefighting to proactive prevention. Our speakers discuss where self-healing operations are real today, how much autonomy leaders are willing to hand to AI, and what proof CIOs should demand before trusting automation with frontline incidents.

Legacy applications and aging infrastructure continue to consume budget and slow every new initiative, yet large-scale rip-and-replace programs carry real risk. This fireside chat looks at how generative AI and AI-assisted engineering are changing the economics and pace of modernization. Our speakers share where AI is accelerating code analysis, migration, and testing, where human oversight remains essential, and how technology leaders can sequence modernization to unlock capacity without disrupting the business.

As employees adopt AI tools and organizations deploy autonomous agents, the attack surface is expanding faster than traditional controls can follow. This fireside chat examines how security leaders are rethinking identity, access, and data protection when software can act on its own. Our speakers discuss the risks emerging from shadow AI and agent behavior, and the practical guardrails CIOs and CTOs can put in place now to enable innovation without losing visibility or control.

Terry Hickey, Chief Technology Officer at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), shares how his organization is bringing AI into a highly regulated environment where trust, data protection, and fiduciary responsibility come first. He explores how OTPP balances innovation with regulatory expectations, which governance practices have helped move AI from pilot to production, and where compliance requirements have shaped technology decisions. Attendees will leave with practical lessons for scaling AI with confidence in their own compliance-heavy industries.

With AI budgets growing, boards and CFOs are asking tougher questions about returns, and many pilots are struggling to graduate into production. This fireside chat tackles how technology leaders can move beyond experimentation to measurable business value. Our speakers explore which metrics resonate with executive stakeholders, how to account for the true cost of running AI at scale, and how to build a credible case for continued investment.

Data residency, privacy regulation, and geopolitical uncertainty are pushing Canadian organizations to reconsider where their data and AI workloads live and who controls them. This fireside chat explores how technology leaders are balancing the speed and scale of global platforms against the need for sovereignty and compliance. Our speakers discuss the trade-offs between public cloud, private infrastructure, and sovereign options, and share a practical lens for deciding which workloads must stay in Canada.

AI and data will fundamentally redefine competitive dynamics, business models, and workforce expectations. Leaders must anticipate disruptive technological shifts, invest in adaptive strategies, and cultivate organizational resilience to harness the full potential of an AI-driven future.