AI Forum
Sydney

August 25, 2026 · Sydney

Agenda

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Tuesday Aug 25

9:00 am – 9:30 am AEST

General Breakfast

9:30 am – 9:45 am AEST

Acknowledgement Of Country & Opening Remarks

Speakers:
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester
Sam Higgins, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

9:45 am – 10:10 am AEST

Keynote: The AI Voyage — From Experiments To Customer Outcomes

AI has reached a pivotal moment. Organizations are investing more, experimenting faster, and expecting greater returns, yet many are still struggling to turn AI into meaningful impact beyond paltry productivity wins. In this opening keynote, Srividya Sridharan will frame what high adopters do differently, both in terms of the traits they demonstrate and the focus areas they lean in on. Hint: Focusing on customers will get you unstuck in your AI voyage to create your unique AI advantage. Attendees will walk away with a shared perspective to navigate AI with confidence, focus, and purpose. 

Speakers:
Srividya Sridharan, VP, Group Director, Forrester

10:10 am – 10:40 am AEST

Networking Break

10:40 am – 10:50 am AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Track Welcome And Kickoff

Join us in the Technology Track Room to meet with your peers and hear from our Research lead, Fred Giron, on this year’s Technology Track, what you can expect to learn, and share tips for making the most of your time at AI Forum.

Speakers:
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Track Welcome And Kickoff

Join us in the CX Track Room to meet with your peers and hear from our Research lead, Martin Gill, on this year’s CX Track, what you can expect to learn, and share tips for making the most of your time at AI Forum.

Speakers:
Martin Gill, VP, Research Director, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Track Welcome And Kickoff

Join us in the Security Track Room to meet with your peers and hear from our Research lead, Jinan Budge, on this year’s Security Track, what you can expect to learn, and share tips for making the most of your time at AI Forum.

Speakers:
Jinan Budge, VP, Research Director, Forrester

10:50 am – 11:10 am AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Introducing The Cognitive Operating Model

Enterprise operating models built for the era of digital transformation assume human-only workforces, application-centric architectures, and process logic encoded in deterministic workflows. None of these assumptions hold in an agentic world. Technology and business leaders need a new operating model that treats human and AI cognitive capabilities as a unified, governable portfolio and aligns architecture, organization, and governance around it. Forrester’s Cognitive Operating Model provides that foundation: a reference framework for enterprises transitioning from digital operating models to cognitive ones. Join this session to: 

  • Understand why digital operating models break down and how application-centric architectures, role-based org design, and deterministic process logic create structural barriers to agentic AI adoption at scale. 
  • Learn the components of the Cognitive Operating Model: a skills-based architecture, a three-plane technology stack, cognitive-hybrid organizational models, and the governance contexts that connect them into a coherent whole. 
  • Assess your readiness to make the transition — where your current operating model assumptions will fail first and how to sequence the architectural, organizational, and governance changes ahead. 

Speakers:
Leslie Joseph, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Anchor AI Value In Trust

AI-generated content is making distrust the default, raising expectations for authenticity, transparency, and accountability. When customers don’t trust AI-enabled experiences, adoption stalls and value goes unrealized. This keynote explains the key drivers of trust and introduces a practical AI value realization system to define outcomes, govern use cases, and prove impact. 

Speakers:
Zhi Ying Barry, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Embrace The New Trust And Assurance Security Organization

Generative and agentic AI are rewriting the CISO mandate — from protector of systems to provider of trust and assurance. This shift demands a fundamentally new operating model: restructured teams, new capabilities, and far deeper collaboration across the business. CISOs must also navigate the complexities of integrating agentic AI into their security programs. This joint keynote will delve into the transformative potential of agentic AI and its uses, implications, and challenges, helping security leaders: 

  • Learn how AI is changing CISOs’ roles and organizations. 
  • Prepare, along with their wider teams, for these evolving roles and responsibilities.  
  • Expand security culture to new stakeholders, priorities, and agents.  

Speakers:
Madelein van der Hout, Senior Analyst, Forrester

11:10 am – 11:35 am AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Making AI Real: Scaling Adoption That Sticks

Many organizations have started their AI journey, but few have successfully scaled it. What does it take to drive real adoption across large, globally distributed teams? This panel brings together AI leaders to share how they are turning AI ambition into action. Learn how companies like Canva are rolling out global education programs, running hands-on “AI Discovery” sprints, and equipping teams with practical frameworks to integrate AI into everyday work.

Join this session to learn:

  • How to accelerate AI adoption beyond pilot programs
  • How to design effective AI education and enablement initiatives
  • Lessons learned from scaling AI across global teams

Speakers:
Leslie Joseph, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Jackie Hill, AI Marketing Lead, Canva

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Guest Session: More Information To Come
Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
What Optimist CISOs Know About AI, And What Skeptics Miss

What separates optimistic CISOs from skeptics on AI? Join us for this session to learn how leading security CISOs are seizing AI’s possibilities while staying clear-eyed about its limits. They’re tackling this change by getting hands-on, coaching teams, and navigating shifts in budgets, burnout risk, and stakeholder expectations. They do all of this while moving toward a future where security is transforming significantly.

Join this session to:

  • Understand how leading CISOs operationalize AI with confidence.
  • Learn how to balance AI opportunity with organizational realities.
  • Explore how AI is reshaping security into a trust and assurance role.

Speakers:
Jinan Budge, VP, Research Director, Forrester
Nataliya Stephenson, Director, Cyber Security & Risk, AsPAC CISO, SERCO

11:40 am – 12:00 pm AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Make Skills The Foundation Of Your Agentic AI Journey

Human and AI cognitive capabilities are converging. Managing them as separate concerns, with different vocabularies, different systems, and different governance, won’t work in an agentic world. Technology and business leaders need a shared framework for the human and nonhuman capabilities that make up reinvented work. A skills-oriented agentic architecture (SOAA) provides that foundation: doing for agentic AI what SOA did for digital. That means a unified human-agent skills registry, skills managed as products, and skills intelligence that reveals the true impact on work, the workforce, and the broader labor market. 

Join this session to: 

  • Understand the SOAA model, why use case framing is the wrong unit of analysis for agentic work, and how SOAA creates alignment between technology and business. 
  • Build the right stack with skills intelligence, registries, context management, and orchestration that cut agent sprawl and sharpen governance. 
  • Make your investments durable. Apply product discipline to human and agent skills as part of a composable agentic portfolio built to deliver on the Cognitive Operating Model. 

Speakers:
Sam Higgins, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Understanding The Digital Moments That Solve Customer Problems

Many customer‑facing AI initiatives start with technology, not customer intent. This session shows you how to use Forrester’s Digital Moments Map with our Customer Experience Index to pinpoint where and how to improve the customers’ total experience. You’ll leave with an evidence‑driven approach to deciding which CX moments deserve investments now and which should be left alone.  

Speakers:
Tom Mouhsian, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Protect The Agentic Enterprise With AEGIS

The agentic enterprise is right around the corner, introducing dynamic, autonomous systems that challenge traditional defenses. AEGIS: Forrester’s Agentic AI Enterprise Guardrails For Information Security offers a pragmatic, future-ready framework to govern, secure, and scale these intelligent agents. In this breakout, we’ll explore how CISOs and senior leaders can apply AEGIS to protect intent, preserve trust, and unlock innovation. Attendees will learn: 

  • Why agentic AI demands a new security paradigm and how emergent behavior redefines risk. 
  • How the six domains of AEGIS create a holistic defense strategy. 
  • The immediate steps that CISOs can take to implement AEGIS and future-proof their enterprise against agentic threats. 

Speakers:
Geoff Cairns, Principal Analyst, Forrester

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm AEST

Networking Lunch & Roundtables

1:00 pm – 1:20 pm AEST

Case Studies

Attend case study sessions to learn how organizations are solving real challenges using today’s top technology, CX, marketing, and security solutions.

Datadog: Whose Side Is AI On? A Perspective On Securing AI That Can Act

AI has stopped advising and started acting. That changes the security question from “is this model safe?” to “how much should it do on its own?” Learn to authorise autonomy you can prove, contain, and trust.

 

Move the question from “is it safe?” to “how much can it do alone?”

Set autonomy by reversibility and blast radius.

Prove, contain, and roll back agentic AI in production.

Speakers:
Yadi Narayana, Field CTO, Datadog

1:25 pm – 1:50 pm AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Reimagining Enterprise Transformation With AI Agents

Agentic AI is giving organizations new ways to redesign how work gets done. At Lendi, this has meant rethinking products, internal operations, and the underlying technology architecture around AI capabilities rather than simply adding AI to existing processes. In this session, Lendi will share how it has moved beyond traditional automation to build AI-powered systems that improve operational efficiency, accelerate product development, and enhance customer experiences. The discussion will also explore the organizational and architectural changes needed to support this transformation over the long term.

Speakers:
Travis Tyler, Chief Product Officer, Lendi

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Smarter Journeys. Better Decisions.

See how CommBank is transforming banking experiences by listening closely to customers, designing simpler digital journeys and exploring the potential of AI-powered support. From mobile app innovations to CommBank Companion, discover how the bank is using customer insights and technology to reduce friction, create more intuitive experiences and help customers navigate financial decisions with greater confidence.

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Security Foundations, Then Agents
While the race to AI adoption accelerates, some security leaders are taking a more deliberate path: foundations first, agents next.
This session explores how CISOs can resist FOMO where their environment calls for stronger foundations, avoiding potential chaos.

Speakers:
Keith Howard, Executive General Manager, Cyber Security & Risk, Suncorp
Jinan Budge, VP, Research Director, Forrester

1:55 pm – 2:15 pm AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
From Prompts To Harness: Engineering Trustworthy Context For Agentic AI

Agentic AI is pushing enterprises beyond prompt tuning into a new era where reliability depends on engineered context. Teams are hitting scaling limits such as context rot, noisy retrieval, inconsistent tool behavior, and semantic ambiguity across data and policies, and these challenges are driving variance, hallucinations, and compliance risk. In this session, Charlie Dai will take you through the evolution from prompt engineering to context engineering and harness engineering, with strategic recommendations and practical guidance to build trustworthy context using semantic layers and knowledge graphs, plus governance and observability to build a solid knowledge foundation for agentic AI initiatives. 

Speakers:
Charlie Dai, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
The Human Foundation Of The AI‑Powered Enterprise

As artificial intelligence reshapes the demands on your business and customer expectations, many organizations respond by bolting AI onto systems never designed for trust or coherence. The result isn’t smarter experiences — it’s faster fragmentation and declining loyalty. This session challenges leaders to confront a hard truth: AI failures are strategy failures. Learn how to build the foundation AI can’t invent on its own — clarity, trust, and intent — to deliver a true total experience powered by humans and AI. 

Speakers:
Riccardo Pasto, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Securing Agentic Software Development

As AI-powered coding solutions advance at breakneck speed, they are not only transforming the role of developers but also reshaping the security landscape. Although AI-generated code promises a revolution in software development, it also introduces a new frontier of risks. In this session, we will examine how autonomous coding solutions are impacting application security, explore the unique vulnerabilities introduced by AI-generated code, and discuss strategies to secure applications in this rapidly evolving ecosystem. In this session, attendees will: 

  • Gain insights into the latest advancements in autonomous coding solutions from an application development perspective. 
  • Understand today’s and tomorrow’s security challenges posed by AI coding solutions and how to adapt security practices. 

Speakers:
Janet Worthington, Senior Analyst, Forrester

2:15 pm – 2:45 pm AEST

Networking Break

2:45 pm – 4:30 pm AEST

Forum Track Workshops

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Workshop: Agentic AI Reinvention - From Experimentation To Operating Model Transformation

Organizations are rapidly moving from AI pilots to broader deployment of generative and agentic AI, but many still struggle to convert experimentation into sustained business value. This workshop introduces a practical framework for thinking about AI as an operating model challenge rather than a series of disconnected use cases. Attendees will gain a clearer way to connect AI initiatives to business outcomes, rethink workflows around skills and roles, and identify the governance and change considerations that matter when scaling agentic AI. Join this session to:

  • Understand a new operating model for AI. Learn the four ways that AI changes work — augmentation, automation, enrichment, and reinvention — and why focusing only on automation limits value.
  • Reframe AI from one-off use cases to reusable skills. See how organizations can design finite, composable AI skills that combine into roles and workflows, making agentic AI more scalable, governable, and adaptable.
  • Apply the thinking to real process redesign. Through hands-on exercises, participants will explore how to redesign workflows for cost, feasibility, and risk and identify where agentic AI can create the greatest business impact.

Speakers:
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester
Leslie Joseph, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
Workshop: Hands-On — Use The Right AI Tools To Scale Your CX Capabilities

With copilots, foundation models, and AI‑embedded platforms multiplying fast, choosing tools has become the bottleneck. This session flips the decision sequence: Start with the CX capabilities you need to win, then map them to the right AI tools. In this session, you’ll: 

  • Learn how to avoid tool sprawl. 
  • Make smarter build‑vs‑buy decisions. 
  • Scale CX impact beyond isolated productivity gains. 

Speakers:
Riccardo Pasto, Principal Analyst, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Workshop: Align And Clearly Communicate Your Security Strategy

An effective cybersecurity strategy is built on several foundational elements that work together to protect an organization’s data, assets, and reputation — and that are adopted based on the ability of the security leader to align with what matters to the business and effectively communicate it. In this interactive workshop, you will work with your peers to build your own cybersecurity strategy on a page to articulate, communicate, and guide your cybersecurity strategic direction and: 

  • Consider all inputs for an aligned strategy that anticipates where the business is going, what external stakeholders require, and how security is tied to revenue. 
  • Develop first-draft mission and purpose statements to refine with your team and stakeholders. 
  • Learn best practices in communicating your strategic intent. 

Speakers:
Madelein van der Hout, Senior Analyst, Forrester

4:30 pm – 4:40 pm AEST

Forum Track Sessions

Technology Leaders: Architect Context And Intent
Technology Track Wrap-Up

Join us as we wrap up the day with our key takeaways from today’s technology sessions and set the stage for our final Forum keynote.

Speakers:
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester

CX & Marketing Leaders: Build The Experience AI Can’t
CX Track Wrap-Up

Join us as we wrap up the day with our key takeaways from today’s CX sessions and set the stage for our final Forum keynote. 

Speakers:
Martin Gill, VP, Research Director, Forrester

Security Leaders: Adopt AI, Confidently
Security Track Wrap-Up

Join us as we wrap up the day with our key takeaways from today’s security sessions and set the stage for our final Forum keynote.

Speakers:
Jinan Budge, VP, Research Director, Forrester

4:50 pm – 5:25 pm AEST

Keynote: Predictions Tank: Which Trends Deserve Your Investment?

Not every prediction is destined to deliver results. In this Shark Tank-inspired keynote, Forrester analysts pitch the trends, technologies, and market shifts they believe will have the biggest impact in the year ahead, while their fellow analysts step into the role of skeptical sharks to challenge assumptions, test the evidence, and probe for business value. Along the way, you’ll have the chance to weigh in, vote on the ideas you believe are most likely to succeed, and compare your instincts with the experts’. Expect lively debate, bold insights, and practical guidance on where leaders should place their bets in the year ahead.

Speakers:
Jinan Budge, VP, Research Director, Forrester
Martin Gill, VP, Research Director, Forrester
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester
Sharyn Leaver, Chief Research Officer, Forrester

5:25 pm – 5:30 pm AEST

Closing Remarks

Speakers:
Frederic Giron, VP, Senior Research Director, Forrester

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm AEST

Networking Reception

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