AI Expo 2026 Day 2: Moving experimental pilots to AI production

The second day of the co-located AI & Big Data Expo and Digital Transformation Week in London showed a market in a clear transition.

Early excitement over generative models is fading. Enterprise leaders now face the friction of fitting these tools into current stacks. Day two sessions focused less on large language models and more on the infrastructure needed to run them: data lineage, observability, and compliance.

Data maturity determines deployment success

AI reliability depends on data quality. DP Indetkar from Northern Trust warned against allowing AI to become a “B-movie robot.” This scenario occurs when algorithms fail because of poor inputs. Indetkar noted that analytics maturity must come before AI adoption. Automated decision-making amplifies errors rather than reducing them if the data strategy is unverified.

Eric Bobek of Just Eat supported this view. He explained how data and machine learning guide decisions at the global enterprise level. Investments in AI layers are wasted if the data foundation remains fragmented.

Mohsen Ghasempour from Kingfisher also noted the need to turn raw data into real-time actionable intelligence. Retail and logistics firms must cut the latency between data collection and insight generation to see a return.

Scaling in regulated environments

The finance, healthcare, and legal sectors have near-zero tolerance for error. Pascal Hetzscholdt from Wiley addressed these sectors directly.

Hetzscholdt stated that responsible AI in science, finance, and law relies on accuracy, attribution, and integrity. Enterprise systems in these fields need audit trails. Reputational damage or regulatory fines make “black box” implementations impossible.

Konstantina Kapetanidi of Visa outlined the difficulties in building multilingual, tool-using, scalable generative AI applications. Models are becoming active agents that execute tasks rather than just generating text. Allowing a model to use tools – like querying a database – creates security vectors that need serious testing.

Parinita Kothari from Lloyds Banking Group detailed the requirements for deploying, scaling, monitoring, and maintaining AI systems. Kothari challenged the “deploy-and-forget” mentality. AI models need continuous oversight, similar to traditional software infrastructure.

The change in developer workflows

Of course, AI is fundamentally changing how code is written. A panel with speakers from Valae, Charles River Labs, and Knight Frank examined how AI copilots reshape software creation. While these tools speed up code generation, they also force developers to focus more on review and architecture.

This change requires new skills. A panel with representatives from Microsoft, Lloyds, and Mastercard discussed the tools and mindsets needed for future AI developers. A gap exists between current workforce capabilities and the needs of an AI-augmented environment. Executives must plan training programmes that ensure developers sufficiently validate AI-generated code.

Dr Gurpinder Dhillon from Senzing and Alexis Ego from Retool presented low-code and no-code strategies. Ego described using AI with low-code platforms to make production-ready internal apps. This method aims to cut the backlog of internal tooling requests.

Dhillon argued that these strategies speed up development without dropping quality. For the C-suite, this suggests cheaper internal software delivery if governance protocols stay in place.

Workforce capability and specific utility

The broader workforce is starting to work with “digital colleagues.” Austin Braham from EverWorker explained how agents reshape workforce models. This terminology implies a move from passive software to active participants. Business leaders must re-evaluate human-machine interaction protocols.

Paul Airey from Anthony Nolan gave an example of AI delivering literally life-changing value. He detailed how automation improves donor matching and transplant timelines for stem cell transplants. The utility of these technologies extends to life-saving logistics.

A recurring theme throughout the event is that effective applications often solve very specific and high-friction problems rather than attempting to be general-purpose solutions.

Managing the transition

The day two sessions from the co-located events show that enterprise focus has now moved to integration. The initial novelty is gone and has been replaced by demands for uptime, security, and compliance. Innovation heads should assess which projects have the data infrastructure to survive contact with the real world.

Organisations must prioritise the basic aspects of AI: cleaning data warehouses, establishing legal guardrails, and training staff to supervise automated agents. The difference between a successful deployment and a stalled pilot lies in these details.

Executives, for their part, should direct resources toward data engineering and governance frameworks. Without them, advanced models will fail to deliver value.

See also: AI Expo 2026 Day 1: Governance and data readiness enable the agentic enterprise

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