Rewiring the enterprise: Inside day one of the Enterprise AI Summit  

When business-critical software can be built in hours, what happens to organisations designed to make decisions in months? This tension ran through day one of the Enterprise AI Summit, hosted by IT Revolution in partnership with Newton at Bletchley Park, the historic home of British codebreaking. Across conversations spanning national security, policing, healthcare and retail, speakers explored how leaders can turn rapidly advancing AI capabilities into better outcomes, and, crucially, what needs to change in their organisations to make that possible. 

For the 150+ attendees, the summit is a unique chance to learn and talk candidly about the AI questions organisations are grappling with everywhere. 

Opening the two-day event, Summit Chair Gene Kim spoke of the momentous opportunities, questions and leadership challenges posed by AI and agentic coding. In an era where AI is profoundly changing what’s possible, organisations now need to rewire how they themselves work, affecting every process and team from the tech department to the CEO.  

Over the course of the day, this theme recurred across many examples and sectors. Prompting the question: are leaders, organisations and society more broadly prepared to change as technology changes the world around them? 

The first expert speaker of the day, Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, Chair of the Bletchley Park Trust and President of Digital Leaders, drew comparisons with the 9,000 people who came to Bletchley during the Second World War to break encrypted enemy communications at speed and scale. At its peak, three quarters of the workforce were women, and its members included ordinary civilians including chess players, crossword enthusiasts and former bank clerks.  

Today’s speakers brought together a similar breadth of perspectives and insight to the challenge of how organisations and leaders can turn the potential of AI into meaningful impact.  

Northrop Grumman Chief Information and Digital Officer, Jondavid Black, and Jeremy Knupp, VP of Global Command and Control Solutions spoke on the importance of predictable, explainable AI for mission-critical applications. They discussed the challenges facing nations looking to out-innovate adversaries at speed and scale in an era of AI-enabled threats, while keeping cost, quality, safety and control manageable.  

As Global SVP of Digital & Ecom Tech at adidas, Fernando Cornago has been accused of having the best job in the world. His presentation certainly brought the energy and pace of a football pitch to the first morning, highlighting the need for organisations to not only be fast, but to stay fast.  

The first expert speaker of the day, Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, Chair of the Bletchley Park Trust and President of Digital Leaders, drew comparisons with the 9,000 people who came to Bletchley during the Second World War to break encrypted enemy communications at speed and scale. At its peak, three quarters of the workforce were women, and its members included ordinary civilians including chess players, crossword enthusiasts and former bank clerks.  

Today’s speakers brought together a similar breadth of perspectives and insight to the challenge of how organisations and leaders can turn the potential of AI into meaningful impact.  

Northrop Grumman Chief Information and Digital Officer, Jondavid Black, and Jeremy Knupp, VP of Global Command and Control Solutions spoke on the importance of predictable, explainable AI for mission-critical applications. They discussed the challenges facing nations looking to out-innovate adversaries at speed and scale in an era of AI-enabled threats, while keeping cost, quality, safety and control manageable.  

As Global SVP of Digital & Ecom Tech at adidas, Fernando Cornago has been accused of having the best job in the world. His presentation certainly brought the energy and pace of a football pitch to the first morning, highlighting the need for organisations to not only be fast, but to stay fast.  

In a fireside chat with Summit Chair Gene Kim, Lord Tim Clement-Jones CBE (Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for AI and Digital; Co-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, House of Lords) shared AI advice for managing partners, board directors and other leaders. Lord Clement-Jones brought a unique vantage point to the session, with his parents having met as code breakers at Bletchley Park during the war. With a healthy dose of warm wit, he explained clearly the importance of governance in ensuring that AI is deployed in line with the values of society and to benefit society.  

Barty Wardell and Nik Lebedenko, the CEO and Co-founder of Vividata, highlighted how speed doesn’t need to compromise safety. Based on their experience from within the highly regulated aviation industry, they showed how a small team can use AI to deliver mission-critical software faster, and the engineering discipline needed to make autonomy safe.  

Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police, Trevor Rodenhurst, revealed how his force is using “game-changing” AI capabilities such as device analytics. The hours saved in administration means frontline officers can spend more time on the streets, directly translating to better outcomes for the public.  

Improving patient outcomes could be a heavier lift, admitted Chris Strear MD, Chief Medical Officer at Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Montana, US.  In conversation with Newton Partner, Rob Vickers, the emergency physician described the flow challenges rife in emergency departments and across the healthcare sector.  Together, the healthcare specialists explored the vast potential of AI to improve the care journey, from intelligent rostering within hospitals to predictive, personalised support for each individual. 

Meanwhile, Dame Emily Lawson, Chief Operating Officer at Newton and Mallory Durran, Chief Technology Officer at Nesta, mused on the changing role of leadership in turning AI-generated signals into earlier, better decisions, and why finding a problem is only part of the challenge. 

The importance of redesigning organisational structures was also brought up by Matthew Skelton, CEO of Conflux and co-author of Team Topologies. He highlighted the need to reshape teams and workflows, align incentives and give people the autonomy to deliver value as new ways of working emerge.