Executive Lunch

Building the Intelligent, Adaptive Enterprise: AI Transformation, Resiliency and Modernization in Financial Services

December 8, 2026 at 12:30 pm | Toronto

Canadian financial institutions are accelerating AI investment, with spending rising across Banking (+72.3% YoY), Insurance (+79.3%), and Capital Markets (+75.8%). Yet readiness lags: only 17% of financial services organizations actively use agentic AI today, while 34% are still exploring.

Data quality and governance remain the top implementation challenge, cited by 47% of Canadian enterprises. With ROI driving AI initiative selection, technology leaders must determine the infrastructure, funding, and operating models needed to scale agentic AI effectively.

IDC, together with Wipro and Microsoft, will convene a curated group of director-level and senior technology leaders from Canadian financial institutions for a candid lunch discussion in Toronto. The roundtable offers an opportunity to benchmark your modernization journey against peers and inform AI investment priorities through IDC research.

61% of Canadian organizations

plan to significantly increase agentic AI spend in 2026, compared with 49% globally.

Most important factors when selecting AI initiatives

ROI potential leads the AI initiative-selecting priorities at 61% in Canada, outpacing the 48% worldwide average.

ROI potential outweighing strategic alignment as a selection criterion points to a bottom-up, project-by-project funding model, where individual business cases compete on payback rather than being sequenced against a broader portfolio strategy.

Technology leaders approving use cases primarily on ROI should treat the resulting capability gap as a funded line item in the business case, not a risk to discover after approval.

Source: IDC’s Functional Agentic AI Survey and IDC’s AI Leaders and Use Case Study (combined), May 2026; (WW n = 2,951, Canada n = 125)

Discussion Themes

Four Conversations Every Tech Executive Should Be Having Right Now

Agentic Transformation: Ambition vs. Reality

AI investment intent in Canada already outpaces the global average, but it does not always translate into deployment. Where leaders sit today in their AI journey, how are funding decisions made (and by who), and what challenges arise as usage scales.

Infrastructure readiness: The Trust Foundation

Data quality and governance is the top challenge enterprises name for agentic AI implementation. How leaders value data readiness, what still needs to be done to trust it, and how organizations weigh the build versus buy versus outsource decision.

The Funding Question

In Canada, ROI potential leads the criteria for selecting AI initiatives. How leaders are making the AI business case, how is spending allocated in different categories, and who owns the strategic mandate ahead of the next five years.

Beyond the Pilot

An adaptive enterprise continuously converts pilots into scaled, governed capability rather than letting them stall. How organizations keep learning and adjusting after deployment, who owns the strategy adaptation, and how to drive it into enterprise-wide.

What To Expect

An executive dinner led by a skilled moderator

An intimate gathering of senior IT leaders from diverse industries, grappling with similar issues

A secure, private conversation open only to a carefully vetted group

Your host

Agenda

Thu, Oct 22

12:30PM

Networking Reception

A private reception bringing together senior executives and industry analysts to connect, exchange perspectives, and set context for the evening’s discussion.

1:00PM

Lunch & Discussion

A moderated, off‑the‑record discussion over lunch focused on real‑world execution challenges, emerging industry priorities, and their implications for enterprise leaders.

3:00PM

Event Concludes

The lunch concludes with brief closing remarks and informal follow‑up conversations, reinforcing key takeaways and ongoing peer engagement.

IDC Executive Lunch in partnership with Wipro & Microsoft