BAFTA

Many organisations are generating a wealth of AI ideas but failing to translate them into meaningful action. While use cases continue to multiply, few are actually implemented at scale—highlighting a growing gap between ambition and execution. In many cases, strategy is moving faster than delivery, raising questions about whether AI initiatives are truly creating impact.

Are we actually transforming the business—or just dressing up indecision as innovation?

For all the talk of end-to-end agentic workflows, many organisations still find themselves fixing the core fundamentals of AI across people, process and technology.

In this end-of-year reflective session, technology leaders share what they’ve learned as agents have moved beyond initial experimentation. This conversation moves beyond marketing spiel and gets into everyday practical obstacles - such as data quality, integration, governance, skills and proving business value, and what it takes to address them before scaling. Leaders openly discuss what has worked, where they’ve fallen short and what they’d do differently next time.

In partnership with Salesforce

Be a part of engaging, honest, and thought-provoking conversations with your peers, exploring the ideas and challenges shaping today’s HotTopics communities.

Be a part of engaging, honest, and thought-provoking conversations with your peers, exploring the ideas and challenges shaping today’s HotTopics communities. 

This creates a broader challenge for technology leaders. Investing in AI or collaboration tools cannot guarantee better outcomes when people, processes and underlying infrastructure are poorly aligned.

As AI becomes embedded into everyday workflows, previously mundane decisions about meeting environments, audio, interoperability and collaboration architecture can have consequences far beyond the room itself.

This panel discussion asks what AI is revealing about the foundations of modern collaboration, and whether organisations are investing in the right places to fix them.

In partnership with Shure

Boards do not want more cyber data, nor the befuddling infosec jargon steeped in industry acronyms.

This session cuts through the jargon to confront a harder truth: without real digital and tech literacy, leaders aren’t driving transformation—they’re reacting to it.

So who’s actually in control—the leadership team, or the technology they barely understand?

In partnership with Sophos. 

Help shape the next HotTopics Technology Leaders Benchmark. Share your priorities, challenges, investment plans and trusted technology partners to build a clearer picture of what matters most to technology leaders in 2027.

What happens when the next generation of female tech talent is given the opportunity to tackle real-world challenges, collaborate with industry leaders and turn ambitious ideas into tangible solutions?

At the 2026 TechGirl Festival, hosted at Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge, TechGirls worked alongside senior technology and business mentors to develop innovative solutions to challenges facing the club. Now, the winning team takes to the stage at BAFTA to share their journey, from developing their winning concept to pitching their ideas to a panel of judges.

Joined by their mentors, the TechGirls will reflect on their festival experience, the inspiration behind their winning idea and the role that collaboration, mentorship and community played in bringing their vision to life.

An invitation to unwind, reflect, and continue building meaningful connections after a day shaped by thought leadership and candid conversation.

The HotTopics Global Hall of Fame brings together visionary executives whose leadership has shaped industries, transformed organisations, and left a lasting mark on the global stage. 

In this panel discussion, Hall of Fame inductees—each peer-nominated, independently judged, and recognised through the HotTopics Global C-suite Awards—share the realities behind sustained success at the highest levels of leadership. From navigating digital disruption to influencing global strategy, these leaders offer a candid perspective on what it truly takes to lead with impact over time.

More than a celebration of achievement, this is a conversation about legacy, relevance, and the evolving expectations of leadership in the digital age.

So what does it really take to build a career that doesn’t just succeed—but endures?

Join us as we celebrate the winners from the HotTopics Global CIO 100 awards category, the global digital and technology leaders redefining the modern, tech-enabled organisation. These leaders shape enterprise strategy, drive digital transformation and deliver measurable impact across their organisations and wider industries.

Join us as we celebrate the winners from the HotTopics Future CIO 100 awards category - technology and digital leaders already shaping what modern CIO leadership looks like. These individuals drive transformation, influence enterprise strategy and deliver meaningful results — before the title fully catches up.

Join Sam McAlister, BAFTA and Emmy-nominated journalist, for this keynote session at the HotTopics Studio at BAFTA. From Buckingham Palace and the White House to Tesla and Facebook, Sam has built a career negotiating with some of the world’s most influential people and organisations.

Enterprises have spent years trying to gain visibility and control over cloud services, SaaS applications and non-human identities. AI agents introduce a new version of a familiar problem, but with an important difference: these technologies store and process information, and act.
 
As adoption accelerates across business functions, organisations may find agents, AI tools and associated permissions spreading faster than central governance can track them. This panel will examine whether enterprises have sufficient visibility into their emerging agent ecosystems, how security leaders can govern activity they did not necessarily provision and how organisations can avoid repeating the lessons of shadow IT while still enabling AI innovation.

For years, businesses were told that “data is the new oil” and so they collected more of it, built bigger platforms, and invested billions in storage and analytics.

But in the AI era, accumulation is no longer advantage.

As intelligence becomes commoditised, the organisations pulling ahead are not the ones with the most data, but the ones turning it into faster decisions, sharper predictions and real-time action.

In a world where everyone has access to powerful AI, is the real competitive advantage no longer data itself or the ability to operationalise intelligence faster than everyone else?

AI is generating vast amounts of synthetic data, content and interactions — reshaping how organisations communicate, make decisions and interpret truth itself.

As machine-generated outputs become indistinguishable from authentic human activity, the next challenge may not be intelligence or automation, but verification.

When seeing is no longer believing, how do we know what’s real?

AI is accelerating product development, decision-making and operational change faster than most organisations can adapt.

As businesses race to scale AI, many are discovering that governance, accountability and security models were never designed for machine-speed innovation. Oversight is fragmented, resilience is often reactive, and leadership teams are increasingly accountable for systems they cannot fully explain or control.

The organisations succeeding in this environment are not necessarily moving the fastest — they are the ones building the leadership capability, operational discipline and governance structures to scale AI responsibly and securely.

This session explores what separates mature AI leadership from reactive adoption — and asks whether organisations are truly prepared to govern the systems they are rapidly building.

Join us as we celebrate the winners from the HotTopics Global CISO 100 awards category, as we recognise the Chief Information Security Officers redefining what modern cybersecurity leadership looks like. These CISOs safeguard organisations, shape strategy and build trust in an increasingly complex digital world. 

In partnership with Thales

Join us as we celebrate the winners from the HotTopics Future CISO 100 awards category, celebrating the rising security leaders shaping the future of cyber defence, resilience and trust. These individuals are already influencing strategy, strengthening security posture and driving meaningful change across their organisations.

In partnership with Thales

Join us as we celebrate the winners from the HotTopics Global CDO 100 awards category, those who are transforming how organisations use data to drive growth, innovation and competitive advantage. These CDOs turn insight into action — shaping strategy, enabling transformation and unlocking measurable impact across the business.

In partnership with CloverDX

An invitation to unwind, reflect, and continue building meaningful connections after a day shaped by thought leadership and candid conversation.