IDC & Insight Executive Event
AI at Scale: Turning Experimentation into Enterprise Value
At our last executive briefing, we focused on foundations: enterprise AI architecture, approaches to scaling, and the governance needed to stay in control without choking innovation. Many organisations left with a clearer picture of what that looks like in practice.
Experiments that started in one team are now production workloads scaling across the organisation. And as that scaling happens, a challenge most technology strategies did not anticipate is surfacing: the cost of AI at enterprise scale is becoming a leadership issue. Token spend, compute, and power grow with every use case you promote from pilot to production. For most organisations, that spend sits in a centralised IT budget with no visibility, no attribution, no accountability, and no clear mapping to business value. This executive briefing is built to understand and address that challenge.
Across four tracks: Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Digital Workplace, and AI, Apps & Data, we will explore how organisations making that transition successfully keep the economics under control and make AI spend visible, attributable, and justifiable at board level.
Agenda
IDC & Insight Executive Event
One Day Event
Delegate Arrival & Networking
IDC Presentation
Neil Ward-Dutton
VP Global Enterprise AI and Agentic AI Strategies, IDC
Insight Presentation
Phil Hawkshaw
EMEA CTO, Insight
It’s the Operating Model, not the Mmodel. Microsoft’s Frontier Transformation Journey
Microsoft didn’t take AI at scale to market until it had lived the journey itself – as its own “Customer Zero.” It turned its IT and salesforce into the test bed for turning experimentation into governed enterprise value. Drawing on Microsoft’s experience and latest research, this keynote reveals why the real differentiator is your operating model, not the model – and why today’s IT leaders hold one of the most consequential roles of their generation.
Richard Potter
Director of Digital Strategy, Microsoft
Networking Lunch
Tracked Sessions – Round 1
Changeover Break
Tracked Sessions – Round 2
Event Close & Networking Drinks
Speakers
Rahiel Nasir
Research Director, European Cloud & Lead Analyst, Worldwide Digital Sovereignty
IDC
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Rahiel Nasir
Rahiel Nasir is responsible for leading and contributing to IDC’s European cloud and cloud data management research programs, as well as supporting associated consulting projects.
Nasir has been watching technology markets and writing about them throughout his professional life.
Prior to joining IDC, he was a research analyst with 451 Research (now part of S&P Global Market Intelligence), where he covered the datacenter infrastructure and services markets across the EMEA region.
Nasir started his career as a consumer technology journalist with Haymarket Publishing where he rapidly worked his way up the ranks to become editor of a number of high-profile magazines, including What Hi-Fi?.
Following a successful career as a freelance technology journalist, he joined BBC Focus magazine as deputy editor before moving on to become editorial director of a number of B2B magazines, such as Networking+ which includes news and features about the technologies of voice and data networks for enterprise users, as well several publications targeted at vendors and service providers involved in the business and technologies of wireless communications in Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Nasir has made numerous appearances on TV, radio, and in the press as a consumer technology spokesperson, and has also spoken at ICT industry events as a presenter, panelist, and moderator.
He was educated at the University of Manchester in England where he studied English and American and classical literature, as well as at the Postgraduate School of Journalism at City University, London.
Duncan Brown
Group Vice President, IDC Europe
IDC
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Duncan Brown
Duncan Brown is associate vice president, European Security Practice, at IDC EMEA and leads the firm’s security research program in Europe. He specializes in providing strategic advice to his clients, informing and validating their corporate, product, and marketing plans. Brown is an expert in analyzing the security market globally, and his list of security-related clients includes enterprises, central banks, government organizations, and security product suppliers and services providers. Brown’s expertise spans the gamut of security topics including incident response, threat intelligence, and global privacy issues. He established and leads IDC’s coverage of the global impact of the GDPR, the RPEC (ePrivacy Directive update) and NIS Directive on technology companies and their customers. His analysis and opinions are widely sought by industry leaders and investors, while his comments on industry trends and developments frequently appear in the leading business and trade publications.
Event Sessions
One Day Event 11:45 am
The AI Skyscraper: How High Will it Go, and How Deep are the Foundations?
We are heading towards an AI future at breakneck speed, yet we are still composing the building blocks that will be required to support long term innovation and growth. AI promises to have substantial impacts, to our economy, technology infrastructure, culture and organisational make-up, and our attitudes to risk. This keynote session will examine the opportunities created by AI, but will also outline the challenges ahead . It will centre attention on four broad areas that organisations should focus on: cloud and infrastructure; cybersecurity and resilience; the AI-enabled workplace; and a deepened reliance on AI-enabled apps and data.
Archana Venkatraman
Senior Director Research, Cloud Data Management
IDC
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Archana Venkatraman
Archana Venkatraman is a Senior Director for IDC’s European Datacenter Research. She covers datacenter technologies including software-defined infrastructures, storage and data management, virtualization, containers, hyperconverged infrastructure, infrastructure performance monitoring, systems management, application development, and cloud services.
Archana also leads IDC’s European thought leadership program on open source technologies. She also contributes to European Digital Transformation, DevOps, Blockchain and IoT research practices.
Before joining IDC, Venkatraman was the datacenter editor at Computer Weekly, the digital magazine and website for IT professionals based in London, where she focused on datacenters, server virtualization, storage, open source technologies, software-defined infrastructures, and cloud computing, liaising with enterprise CIOs and technology vendors to develop deeper insight into the enterprise IT industry. Venkatraman has a master’s degree in journalism from Mumbai University.
Leonardo Freitas
Research Manager, European Skills and Cloud Strategies
IDC
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Leonardo Freitas
Rob O’Connor
EMEA Technology Lead & CISO
Insight
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Rob O’Connor
Rob O’Connor is Insight’s EMEA CISO and is a business technology innovator focused on advancing cybersecurity across diverse industries. He leads regional security strategy, resilience planning, and risk alignment, helping organisations strengthen their security posture while enabling digital transformation. With expertise spanning cloud security, threat management, and modern security operations, Rob is known for translating complex risks into clear, actionable strategy and driving pragmatic innovation that accelerates business outcomes.
Phil Hawkshaw
EMEA CTO
Insight
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Phil Hawkshaw
Phil Hawkshaw. EMEA CTO. An engineer, innovator and strategist. Helping organisations deliver technology transformation and adopt emerging technologies with confidence. Responsible for Insight’s strategic portfolio, AI innovation across EMEA and the UK Public Sector.
Neil Ward-Dutton
VP Global Enterprise AI and Agentic AI Strategies
IDC
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Neil Ward-Dutton
Lee Wilkinson
Chief Strategist & Distinguished Technologist – EMEA Cloud Platforms
Insight
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Lee Wilkinson
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Hannah Dowie
Senior Event Manager
IDC
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