Meet our Enterprise AI Summit leaders

This question sits at the heart of the Enterprise AI Summit, taking place at Bletchley Park, UK, on 2-3 November 2026. Organised by IT Revolution in partnership with Newton, the event will assemble business and technology leaders to share the challenges and successes they are experiencing at the frontier of enterprise AI. 

We sat down with Summit Chair Gene Kim and Newton’s Chief AI Officer Ben Grinnell to find out more. 

What separates organisations turning AI into commercial advantage from those simply advancing technically? 

Gene: With AI, we’re on the brink of an era where software development is near instantaneous and free. That means the bottlenecks are shifting to other parts of the organisation such as planning, prioritisation, capital allocation and governance. Forward-thinking organisations recognise this as the biggest leadership challenge we’ve seen in 100 years – a chance to radically change the way they work to massively elevate their ability to achieve enterprise and societal goals. 

Ben: Exactly – using AI to solve one bottleneck in isolation won’t put you ahead of competitors, but using it to make faster decisions will. The smartest organisations are those experimenting and learning fastest. They’re not trying to design their entire approach before they understand what the technology can do. They play, learn and then establish the governance as they go along. 

What is the risk of treating AI as next year’s problem? 

Ben: AI’s progress is exponential. Wait a year and you’ll fall several years behind, perhaps never catching up. As an example, I remember a stark warning from a senior security leader at Anthropic that organisations failing to deploy AI to help defend their network perimeters could find their existing defences inadequate within months. That was earlier this year, and I think we’re already seeing the urgency of that warning play out. Staying still is not an option. 

The AI Enterprise Summit will bring together organisations of different sizes, sectors and disciplines. What can leaders expect to discover outside their usual networks?  

Gene: Whether you’re a start-up, a tech giant, a century-old manufacturer or a body delivering a vital public service, we’ve all been ‘rebooted’ by AI at the same time. We’re all figuring out how to make the most of this incredible technology, and the summit is an opportunity for leaders to amplify that learning. What a magnificent opportunity to close the gap with a market leader, increase the gap over everyone behind you or achieve breakthroughs that really matter for society. 

Ben: Leaders from a range of sectors will be joining us, including two of the most highly regulated industries in the world. So it’s an exciting opportunity to share learnings between people who might not typically be in the same room. While every sector faces its own challenges, many of the big questions around AI are shared, and bringing together different perspectives will no doubt inspire the fresh thinking that helps us all move forward. 

What makes the ‘experience reports’ leaders share at the summit so useful?  

Gene: I’ve run 24 conferences over the last 12 years, and what I’ve found is that leaders learn more from other leaders solving similar problems than from experts telling them what to do. Our AI Enterprise Summit experience reports start with the industry, the organisation and the business problem. Speakers explain what they did, the tools and techniques they used, what happened and the value created. They also share lessons, remaining obstacles and where they need help. That openness is the magic ingredient for a community that can learn together.  

Ben: What I particularly appreciate is that there is no velvet rope between speakers and the audience. After their talk, speakers stay and participate, so everyone is part of the learning.  

Of all the experience reports you’ve heard over the years, which have stayed with you? 

Ben: I remember listening to a food safety and quality manager from online grocery company Thrive Market. She was juggling interactions with multiple people through a burdensome bunch of spreadsheets and emails. So, she took it upon herself to ask AI for help and built a high-quality solution using tools already available within the company. Rather than simply making tasks faster, she completely rebuilt how her role worked. It’s an incredible story of how giving frontline workers the freedom to experiment with AI within company guardrails can allow innovation to flourish. 

Gene: Absolutely. In a similar vein, I was impressed by Art Smalley, the renowned expert in lean thinking who was one of the first Americans to work for Toyota in Japan. He described how frontline teams are traditionally overlooked for R&D resources, but Toyota’s Production System philosophy enables people to solve their own problems. So if, for example, the procurement team can use AI to completely change how they negotiate with suppliers, that could save half a million dollars here and there. Over time, it adds up to material business impact.  

How can attendees turn their learning into action? 

Ben: When I joined Newton as Chief AI Officer, I took 10 colleagues with diverse roles and seniority levels to Gene’s AI summit in Las Vegas. They returned as our first group of AI champions and each one of them has transformed a part of the organisation. AI can’t be delegated to the IT department or an AI function. It has to be everyone’s job. The strategy shouldn’t be bring in some AI experts, it should be take the most influential people in your organisation and turn them into AI Champions, that’s what we’ve designed this event to do. 

What unresolved questions are you bringing to Bletchley Park? 

Gene: I’m particularly excited about hearing from Chief Medical Officer Chris Strear and MD and Newton partner Rob Vickers on harnessing the huge potential of AI to improve flow in hospital systems. This is a critical frontier and one that could really help to achieve better patient outcomes worldwide. 

Ben: For me, it’s trust. AI could help us tackle much more complex systems of work, but adoption depends on confidence in it. There are great advances is areas like proveable code and we are just entering a period of unprecedented cyber-security disruption where AI will be both the villain and the only saviour so trust will be difficult but critical and I’m excited to learn how other are thinking about how that plays out over the next couple of quarters.  

What would you say to a board director considering attending the AI Enterprise Summit? 

Ben: Whatever your role on the board, this is relevant to you. Get involved yourself, encourage your teams and build your understanding through experience. The organisations with the most hands-on leaders often make the fastest progress. 

Gene: There’s something extremely powerful about that personal ‘aha’ moment when you see AI conjure out of thin air in seconds something you’ve struggled to do for years. In my experience, the more senior the leader, the bigger the ‘aha’ moment and the greater their determination to use AI to solve their organisation’s biggest challenges.