AI is no longer optional. Boards are asking about it. Competitors are investing in it. Employees are experimenting with it. Yet despite significant spending and enthusiasm, many organizations remain stuck in pilots and isolated productivity gains. Why? Because AI success is not about installing new tools. It is about preparing the enterprise.
In this keynote, Fern Halper, Ph.D., author of Data Makes the World Go ’Round: The Data, Tech, and Trust Behind AI Success, draws on original research and executive interviews to explain what separates organizations that scale AI from those that stall. She outlines the core dimensions of AI readiness—business-driven strategy, a modern and governed data foundation, enterprise-wide AI literacy, operational discipline, and evolved governance for generative and agentic AI. Her message is clear: AI magnifies weaknesses that already exist inside your organization. Leaders will leave with a practical understanding of what it takes to move beyond experimentation and build AI as a lasting enterprise capability.
