This session brings together clients and service provider practitioners to discuss cutting edge cost optimization strategies through AI. Explore emerging and maturing AI solutions that drive cost optimization across IT, manufacturing, and SG&A expenses and discuss practical strategies toward driving adoption to enhance efficiency and competitiveness in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

• Learn how 2025 has brought new advances in maturing AI tools and strategies.
• Gain actionable insights on how GenAI-driven services translate into tangible cost reductions and operational efficiencies.
• Understand how to leverage client/service provider partnerships to accelerate scalable, GenAI-powered solutions, ensuring sustained cost competitiveness in a dynamic economic environment.

ISG’s vertical leaders provide insight into the market, their observations of the challenges, and our vision of the future in this market.

Artificial intelligence and agents are set to disrupt the software industry and not just from the multitude of futuristic use cases that will affect end users in every department of a company. Software providers are counting on promoting AI and agentic AI as a way to reduce implementation costs, speed time to value and reduce software migration risk. This threatens to displace a significant percentage of the traditional sources of income for service providers.
Software company roadmaps point to a world where service providers revenue from traditional activities will be a fraction of what they are today, but new opportunities open up. In a period of rapid change, service providers should act strategically to forge broader and deeper relationships with software providers.
In the new world of AI, what strategies should service providers adopt to avoid disruption? 

ISG’s vertical leaders provide insight into the market, their observations of the challenges, and our vision of the future in this market.

ISG’s vertical leaders provide insight into the market, their observations of the challenges, and our vision of the future in this market.

The integration of Agentic AI is set to redefine the future of business applications, transforming front to back-office operations. This radical shift is reshaping enterprise evaluations of business software. As organizations adapt to these changes, a new paradigm for business and industry software research emerges. 

• How does AI-infused software boost productivity and upskill the workforce while enhancing the user experience?
• Where does AI change the way business software works?
• What do enterprises need in business applications for the future with AI?

Despite the hype around GenAI, one challenge keeps surfacing: data. Backed by recent ISG research, this session explores the internal and provider-side gaps that are preventing organizations from fully activating their AI strategies.  We will also introduce the concept of the “data tower,” a framework emerging from this research, and explore its growing relevance in an AI-driven enterprise landscape.

ISG’s vertical leaders provide insight into the market, their observations of the challenges, and our vision of the future in this market.

Lights-out manufacturing sets the stage for the realization of Decentralized Dark Factories, promoting a completely hands-off approach to smart manufacturing. What do today's trending technologies in Industry 4.0/5.0 promise?

• What's required for an Industry 5.0 transformation?
• What adoption and implementation challenges will you face to reach the era of Dark Factories?

The emergence of Agentic and Generative AI is ushering in a new era for the AI software market, fundamentally reshaping the software universe. Investigate the evolving data foundations that support enterprise AI applications, alongside significant transformations in cloud computing and platforms for business software. As enterprises adapt, they are redefining criteria for evaluating AI and IT software solutions. We will address future directions in AI and IT software research, emphasizing key insights.

We are entering a new era—one where the pace of AI-driven transformation will make past technological shifts seem like slow motion. In this keynote, we will explore “AI First to AI Last”, a journey through a rapidly evolving economy where artificial intelligence moves from being a competitive differentiator to becoming the invisible operating fabric of businesses and industries.
Drawing parallels to the layered realities in the film Inception, we will examine how AI will fundamentally reshape sourcing at multiple levels—some visible, some systemic, and some imperceptible at first glance. Like all transformative technologies, AI today risks being overestimated in the short term but profoundly underestimated in its long-term impact.
As technology providers rapidly pivot to support hybrid ecosystems of human workflows, humans-in-the-loop, and AI-driven decision engines, the very structure of complex services and commercial pricing models will evolve. New forms of value will emerge—driven by AI autonomy, human-AI collaboration, and dynamic sourcing ecosystems.
This keynote will provide cutting-edge research, emerging use cases, and a strategic vision for navigating this rapidly changing landscape. Attendees will leave with a practical roadmap to evolve from AI-first adoption to AI-last integration, preparing their organizations to lead in the AI-saturated economy of the future.

As AI transforms every industry, it’s critical that women are not only included—but leading the way. Explores the power of representation in shaping the future of AI, spotlighting women who are driving innovation across their fields. We’ll examine how AI is redefining leadership itself, moving away from traditional hierarchies toward more empathetic, collaborative, and inclusive models—where women’s natural leadership strengths align with the moment.  AI is enabling women to lead with greater impact. Join us for an inspiring conversation about how women are building a more equitable, creative, and powerful AI future—for everyone.

The evolving landscape of AI is significantly transforming business and IT operations, yet the reality often diverges from the promises presented by software providers. Explore the critical role of services in adapting software to align with real-world business needs and identify gaps in current offerings from software and service providers. 

• What are the essential elements required from AI technologies to foster IT success in business contexts. 
• How are enterprises dealing with the promises and reality of AI?
• Where will AI change workplace and business productivity?

Based on emerging GenAI trends, new themes are reshaping the manufacturing landscape, driving transformation across operations and business models. Explore today’s strategic priorities for adopting GenAI in manufacturing and examine the critical role service providers play in scaling innovation, enabling manufacturers to move from pilot initiatives to widespread adoption.

As AI agents shift from theoretical promise to practical implementation, service and software providers are facing a new challenge: reconciling client business goals with the unpredictable behavior, autonomy, and complexity of agentic systems. How is the emergence of AI agents transforming delivery models, project architectures, and client expectations? What are the lessons learned so far?

Successfully delivering value in complex, multi-project ERP transformation programs require more than just robust planning and execution — it demands a proactive approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks across both IT and Business domains. Explore a structured Risk Advisory Framework tailored for large-scale ERP programs and discover why this is critical, how it helps de-risk implementations for both you and your clients, and the tangible outcomes it enables.

AI is reshaping healthcare, driving advances in diagnostics, personalized treatment, and operational efficiency. In clinical settings, AI outperforms humans in detecting early-stage cancers, extracts insights from notes, predicts patient deterioration, and powers remote monitoring. In non-clinical areas, providers and payers use GenAI and agentic AI to optimize costs and streamline administration. While challenges around data privacy and bias remain, AI adoption is accelerating, with record investments and mainstream implementation across global health systems.

• How can you improve know-how on implementation of data-oriented services that address core healthcare needs?
• How would AI need to process unstructured data and imaging data?
• How can technology assist in personalized and pro-active care?

When it comes to AI, we as an industry are often finding ourselves in uncharted waters. This session shares real-world lessons from teams navigating the uncertainty of developing and delivering AI solutions in client-facing environments. Gain practical insights you can apply immediately to your next engagement—whether you're scoping an AI project, managing risk, or aligning stakeholders.

The future promises integrated platforms that streamline functions across all departments, each managed and used efficiently by IT to support business. How can enterprises achieve operational excellence through effective Service and Operations Management tailored to meet departmental needs? Learn the importance of task automation and process intelligence as they play a crucial role in accelerating workflow efficiency and reducing bottlenecks and navigate the intersection of application and development platforms while harnessing the power of AI for innovation. The introduction of Agentic AI is set to revolutionize IT services interoperability, transforming how enterprises collaborate internally and externally.

As the security solution market continues to expand and evolve, organizations are confronted with the increasingly difficult task of assessing the most suitable solutions. At the same time providers face challenges in effectively communicating their value propositions. Explore the evaluation process to discern the ideal cybersecurity solution from a myriad of options and gain valuable insights into the criteria and methodologies employed to identify and select solutions.

• Identify the factors clients prioritize when choosing security solutions.
• Discover ways providers can facilitate the evaluation process.
• Gain an insight into clients' security provider strategies that influence the selection.

Enterprise value reaches its full potential when platforms, providers, and enterprises work in sync—but achieving that alignment is becoming increasingly complex. Rapid technological change, mismatched expectations, and unexpected friction points are creating new challenges. Hear directly from platform leaders, providers, and enterprises on how to harness fluidity and intelligence to drive ROI in today’s evolving application ecosystem. Explore what it takes to bring these forces together effectively—and spotlight the pitfalls and anti-patterns to avoid.

As traditional CRM systems show their age, forward-looking enterprises are reimagining front-office and revenue software to meet the demands of modern, dynamic customer lifecycles. The next generation of revenue platforms—augmented by automation, generative AI, and agentic AI—will go far beyond pipeline tracking to actively drive selling, streamline renewals, and power expansion opportunities. Examine how AI is shifting from passive insight to proactive execution, helping revenue teams focus on outcomes rather than administration and gain insight into how revenue performance planning is being transformed through adaptive, data-driven approaches that align go-to-market resources to business impact. Unpack the fast-evolving role of dedicated monetization platforms built for subscription, usage-based, and hybrid models, and their emergence as central to both commercial strategy and operational scalability.

(Box Breakfast provided)

(8:30 am shotgun start) 
Buses depart at 7:30 am

  * Paragon Awards
  * IPL Awards
  * Star of Excellence
  * Software Industry Awards