AI is keeping CEOs awake at night. Here’s why that should matter to you.
2 minutes
Tom Shepherd
Director of Business Development
On 14th May, the AI in Business Conference 2026 will bring together senior leaders grappling with one of the biggest questions facing enterprise today: what does your business become in an AI-driven world?
Representing GW, our Chief AI Officer, Mark Simpson, will be taking to the stage to unpack a reality we’re increasingly seeing across the organisations we work with.
AI is no longer a question of if or how, it’s more of a question of survival.
The Business Impact Gap is widening
Across the market, activity around AI is accelerating. More pilots. More tools. More internal conversations.
But underneath that activity, a different pattern is emerging - very little is translating into meaningful, business-level impact. This is what we describe as the Business Impact Gap - the growing divide between AI effort and actual enterprise value.
Most organisations are stuck in fragmented experimentation, running disconnected tools with isolated use cases. Teams are moving at different speeds, often using shadow AI with no clear link to a longer-term business strategy.
The result is an increase in complexity, but competitive advantage remains the same (if not, reducing).
And that’s exactly what’s keeping CEOs awake.
Why this matters now
The world is shifting, AI isn’t just changing how businesses operate, it’s fundamentally reshaping what businesses are and that shift is happening at a pace we’ve not really experienced before.
Markets are being redefined, moats are being rebuilt (and in many cases, erased altogether).
Organisations that move early to align AI with their core business model will define their future. Those that don't will become commoditised and will never reach their potential.
What we’ll be sharing
In our session, Mark will focus on what it actually takes to move beyond experimentation and start driving real impact.
That includes:
How to move from isolated AI activity to aligned, enterprise-wide systems
Why most transformation efforts stall and what you can do to avoid it
What it looks like to design AI around business outcomes, not tools
How to build the foundations needed to shape the future of your organisation, rather than react to it
This isn’t a session about the latest tools or trends but more about how to think, structure, and act differently in a world where AI is redefining competitive advantage.
Join us
If you’re attending the AI in Business Conference 2026, we’d recommend joining Mark’s talk. If you’re not but would like to, we have some spare tickets and you’re welcome to join us. Drop me a message if you’d like to come with us.
If you’re currently navigating how AI fits into your organisation - or questioning whether your current approach is actually making a difference, this is a conversation worth being part of.
AI & Data
In-person
