This fireside chat brings together leading voices from industry and open-source to explore how artificial intelligence is being meaningfully integrated into enterprise environments—beyond the buzzwords. Moderated by Alexander CS Hendorf, the conversation features Walid Mehanna (Chief Data Officer, Merck), Dr. Alexander Beck (CTO, Quoniam), and Ines Montani (co-founder explosion.ai, spaCy), who share their diverse perspectives from pharmaceuticals, finance, and AI tooling.

Together, they’ll explore the cultural, technical, and ethical dimensions of AI adoption in large organizations, the growing influence of open-source ecosystems, and the long-term vision required to build sustainable, human-centered AI systems. This session is designed for those who want to move past the hype and better understand what real-world innovation at scale looks like—and what it demands from leadership, infrastructure, and community.