AI Adoption and Literacy Focus Day - Wednesday 23 September

AI success is often reduced to performance benchmarks and technical metrics, but the real impact of AI goes far beyond accuracy scores. This opening panel explores how organizations can evaluate AI through a broader lens, including business value, human outcomes, trust, governance, and long-term societal impact. Panellists will share perspectives on what meaningful measurement looks like in practice and how responsible AI adoption requires new ways of defining success.

Miriam Fernández

Director, AI Research & Adoption Lead, Analytical Innovation
S&P Global Ratings

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Adelheid Moxon

Head of People Innovation & Transformation
Holcim

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At Merck, AI adoption is being operationalized through workforce design, embedding learning in real workflows rather than through standalone courses. HR leads act as the organizational lighthouse, linking AI fluency to role-specific skills employees can apply immediately. Mariana Hebborn, Head of HR Data & AI Governance, unpacks the operating model, governance, and activation tactics that enable responsible AI to scale across thousands of employees. Responsible AI becomes part of the organization's mindset, data, tooling, and operating model.

Mariana Hebborn

Global Head of HR AI & Data Governance
Merck Group

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As AI adoption accelerates across industries, questions about its impact on jobs and hiring continue to grow. This panel explores how AI is reshaping recruitment, job availability, and workforce skills. Panellists will discuss how organisations can responsibly integrate AI into hiring practices while supporting workforce adaptation and maintaining fair access to employment.

Philippa Penfold

Responsible AI & Data Science Manager
Elsevier

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Talk Details to Be Announced 

Claudiu Badea

Early Careers Lead
Shell

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As organisations begin working with agentic AI systems that can plan, act, and coordinate across workflows, AI literacy must evolve in step. This interactive breakout session explores how enterprise adoption strategies are shifting as AI moves from tool-based use to agent-based collaboration. Through discussion, participants will examine what this means for workforce readiness and how to redesign literacy programmes for emerging capabilities.

• Understanding agentic AI and enterprise implications

• Preparing workforces for AI agent collaboration

• Evolving literacy for autonomous AI systems

As organisations rapidly adopt advanced AI tools, success depends on how well they are applied across different business functions, not just how they are built. This panel explores practical strategies for driving value in context. Panellists will share what works, where functions struggle, and how organisations are building shared AI fluency to enable effective and responsible use. The session highlights the cultural, operational, and learning approaches that make AI relevant, usable, and impactful across the business.

Shay Weiss

Head of Ireland’s Engineering, DevOps and Product, Director WBA Digital
Walgreens Boots Alliance

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Most enterprises underestimate the biggest barrier to responsible AI adoption: uneven baseline literacy. At Philips, Rakesh Doddamane, Gen AI and Responsible AI Lead, shares practical insights from building and evolving a structured AI literacy program. He explores a multi-faceted approach, including tiered GenAI certification courses and hands-on sessions using tools like Philips AI Chat, highlighting how these efforts bridge learning to real-world application. He also discusses the challenges, lessons learned, and metrics that measure the gap between literacy and meaningful AI adoption.

Rakesh Doddamane

Generative AI/Responsible AI and User Experience Lead
Philips

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The focus now shifts to sustaining momentum and turning learning into long-term capability. This closing panel reflects on the day’s discussions and explores the next steps for operationalising AI literacy across organisations. The conversation will also emphasise the importance of building a cross-industry community: sharing experiences, challenges, and emerging practices to collectively advance responsible AI adoption.

Danielle Langford

Responsible AI Specialist
Zurich Insurance

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Emily Campbell-Ratcliffe

Head of AI for Local Growth
Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology

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