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UPCOMING EVENTS

AI & Data Innovation Strategies: Chicago (Rosemont/O’Hare), Illinois

Aligning Modern Data Architectures with AI-Driven Innovation in the Enterprise

July 16, 2026

9:00am-5:00pm

7 CPE / 0.7 CEU / CISSP / 7 PDU Credits Awarded

Conference location: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center Rosemont (O’Hare) Illinois

  

Overview

AI holds huge promise for the industry as a whole.  The key is determining the right strategy for your organization that you can build and execute on.

What You Will Learn

In this one day conference attendees will learn the following:

  • Modern Data Architectures for the AI-Enabled Enterprise
  • Scaling AI with Cloud-Native Data Platforms
  • Operationalizing AI: From Models to Production at Scale
  • Architecting for Real-Time AI and Streaming Analytics
  • Data Governance in the Age of AI: Guardrails Without Roadblocks
  • Enterprise Perspectives: Building AI-Ready Data Architectures (Panel Discussion)

 

CONFERENCE AGENDA

8:00am – 9:00am: Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00am – 10:00am: Mythos – Reframing Cyber Risk and Security Programs in the Age of AI
Steven Davis, Information Security Operational Analyst, Zurich North America
JC Peralta, CISSP, CCSP, Zurich North America
Jennifer Rush, Sr. Security GRC Analyst, Zurich North America

As frontier AI models rapidly accelerate the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities, organizations are entering a new era of cyber risk defined by speed, scale, and automation. Traditional security assumptions around patch timelines, incident response, and vendor risk are quickly becoming obsolete.

In this session, leaders from Zurich will examine how AI‑augmented threats are reshaping the cybersecurity landscape and what it means for enterprise security programs. Attendees will gain insight into emerging capabilities such as autonomous vulnerability discovery, large‑scale exploit chaining, and the growing role of industry collaboration in securing critical software supply chains.

The discussion will also highlight the operating model changes needed to respond to this new reality, including:

  • accelerating vulnerability detection and remediation processes
  • strengthening third‑party supply chain security
  • evolving governance and compliance approaches to align with emerging regulations such as the EU AI Act

The session will also highlight how security, procurement, and third‑party risk functions must evolve to enable rapid adoption of defensive AI while maintaining appropriate oversight. Practical examples will demonstrate how organizations are shifting toward continuous compliance and AI‑driven risk management.

These shifts position governance, third-party risk management, and security operating models as foundational components of modern enterprise architecture.

Designed for enterprise architects, infrastructure leaders, and cybersecurity decision-makers, this session will provide practical insights into building a security-first architecture strategy that supports both business transformation and long-term cyber resilience.

   

           Davis                              Peralta                             Rush

 

10:00am – 10:30am: Sponsor & Refreshment Break

 

10:30am – 11:30am: Designing Data Architectures That Support AI at Scale

Not all modern data architectures are built for AI. This session explores the architectural approaches that enable analytics, machine learning, and generative AI without creating complexity or bottlenecks.

You will learn:

  • Which data architecture patterns best support AI use cases
  • When real-time vs. batch data matters for AI
  • How to design for scalability, performance, and flexibility

11:30am – 12:30pm: From Assistants to Agents: Architecting the Autonomous Enterprise 

Aaron McAllister, Field CTO, Cloudflare

By 2026, the novelty of Generative AI “chat” has faded, replaced by the necessity of “Agentic Workflows”: AI systems that don’t just talk, but act. For architects and executives, this shift requires moving beyond simple RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to complex multi-agent orchestration. This session moves past the hype to discuss the structural changes required to give AI “agency” within legacy systems. We will explore how to design “hand-off” protocols between human and machine, the technical requirements for autonomous reasoning, and the managerial shift from overseeing “tasks” to overseeing “outcomes.”

You will learn:

  • The Taxonomy of Agents: Understanding the difference between a tool-using LLM and an autonomous agent.
  • Trust Architecture: How to build “kill switches” and validation layers for agents interacting with live production data.
  • The Managerial Pivot: Tactics for redefining KPIs when the “worker” is a semi-autonomous digital entity.

McAllister

12:30pm – 1:30pm: Lunch and Exhibit Break

 

1:30pm – 2:30pm:Iceberg for Agents – Elevate Lakehouse Data into AI Context
Andrew Madson, Principal, Developer Relations, Fivetran

AI agents fail in production because they’re overwhelmed with data but starved for context. LLM models aren’t the problem. The bottleneck is the data stack: fragmented silos, inconsistent definitions, and logic hidden in tribal knowledge. Agents need structured, reliable, and interpretable context—not just data access.

In this session, we’ll show how Apache Iceberg becomes the backbone of AI-ready pipelines. You’ll learn how to elevate your Iceberg implementation from a storage format to a live context layer that powers structured retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema-aware agents, and autonomous reasoning grounded in truth.

What we’ll cover:
1. Iceberg Foundations for AI – from ACID to Time Travel
2. From Rows to Relationships – The role of the semantic layer
3. Structured RAG in Practice – Fully open source

The session includes a live demo of a fully open-source Structured RAG stack built on Apache Iceberg, featuring semantic query translation, hybrid retrieval, and governed agent reasoning. Expect architecture diagrams, real code, and practical guidance.

          Madson

2:30pm – 3:00pm: Refreshment Break

 

3:00pm – 4:00pm: Building an AI-Ready Organization
Rathan Ramachandra, AVP – Senior Scrum Master, PNC

Technology alone does not drive AI success. This session focuses on the people, processes, and operating models required to sustain AI-driven innovation across the enterprise.

You will learn:

  • How teams and roles evolve as AI adoption grows
  • Ways to improve collaboration between IT, data, and the business
  • How to support experimentation while enabling scale

    Ramachandra

4:00pm – 5:00pm: AI & Data Leadership Panel: Turning Strategy Into Sustainable Innovation

This interactive panel brings together experienced data and AI leaders to discuss what works — and what doesn’t — when implementing AI at scale in the enterprise.

You will learn:

  • How leaders prioritize AI initiatives with real impact
  • Common pitfalls organizations encounter on their AI journey
  • Lessons learned from successful enterprise programs
  • Audience Q&A

Panelists Include:

  • Nagesh Perumalla, Analytics Platforms Engineering, Discover Financial Services (Capital One)

        Perumalla

 

Conference Price: $349.00 per person

Each attendee will receive a certificate awarding 7 CPE credits for CISSP continuing education, in addition to 0.7 CEUs and 7 PDUs. CISSP is a registered certification mark of (ISC)², Inc.

Exhibits

                                                       

As is always the case at CAMP IT Conferences events, the talks will not include product presentations. During the continental breakfast, coffee breaks, and the luncheon break you will have the opportunity to informally meet representatives from the following sponsoring companies, who have solutions in the area of the conference.