From LLMs to Agentic AI: Preparing Your Organisation for the Next Wave

From LLMs to Agentic AI: Preparing Your Organisation for the Next Wave

2026-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

2026-09-15T20:00:00+00:00

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From LLMs to Agentic AI: Preparing Your Organisation for the Next Wave📅 Date: Tuesday, 15 September 2026🕓 Time: 18:00 – 22:00 (welcome and reception from 18:00, programme starts 18:30)📍 Venue: Auditorium M100, Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center, IMD Campus, Lausanne👔 Dress code: Smart casual🎤 Format: Two keynotes and a joint panel Q&A, followed by an apéro🤝 Hosted by: IMD Alumni Club of Lausanne, in partnership with the EPFL Alumni Chapter Vaud-ValaisEvent OverviewAI is moving faster than any technology before it, and the gap between what it can do and what most organisations do with it widens every week. This evening closes that gap from two sides.Marcel Salathé lays the foundation: what today’s AI is capable of, how it got this far this fast, and what agentic systems can and cannot do. Andy Fitze turns that foundation into an agenda for your organisation: how you adopt AI, and what has to be in place at the organisational level for it to succeed. Both speakers then take your questions in a joint panel, directly from the floor and via Slido.What You Will LearnUnderstanding the wave — Marcel SalathéWhat today’s AI is capable of and how it developed, at helicopter levelWhy capability keeps growing: scaling, and the capital behind the build-outThe geopolitics of AI: US–China friction points, Europe’s position, Switzerland’s own AI infrastructure and the case for open modelsAgentic AI: what autonomous systems can do today, and where their limits areLeading the transformation — Andy FitzeHow to adopt AI in your organisation: from first use cases to agentic systems doing real workThe organisational setup it takes to succeed: structure, governance, skills and cultureThe leadership dimension: what boards and executive teams must decide, and whenJoint panel Q&ABoth speakers on stage, taking your questions directly and via SlidoWhy AttendThe AI wave will reach every company represented in the room, on a timeline the technology sets. If you sit on a board, run a company or carry transformation responsibility in your function, this evening gives you a grounded read on where AI stands, where it is going, and what your organisation has to change to be ready.Event Format18:00 – 18:30: Welcome and reception18:30 – 20:15: Presentations and joint panel Q&A20:15 – 22:00: Networking over apéro riche (standing dinner with drinks)Registration⏰ Registration Deadline: September 10, 2026🎟️ Fee: EPFL Alumni contributor members: 40.-  /  EPFL Alumni non-contributor members: 65.-⚠️ No-show Policy: Cancellations less than 24 hours before the start of the event are not refunded SpeakersProf. Marcel SalathéCo-Director, EPFL AI Center | Co-Founder, Applied Machine Learning DaysMarcel Salathé is a professor at EPFL, where he co-directs the EPFL AI Center. EPFL, together with ETH Zurich and CSCS, leads the Swiss AI Initiative, whose fully open Apertus model gave Switzerland its own large language model in 2025. He co-founded the Applied Machine Learning Days, one of Europe’s leading AI conferences, led Switzerland’s national COVID-19 research programme, and founded the EPFL Extension School. He is one of the country’s clearest voices for Switzerland and Europe building their own AI capability on open, sovereign foundations, and he brings that theme to the stage. On The Framework (www.theframeworkapp.com), the platform built on his book “IA : comment ne pas perdre le nord ?” and extended with new content every week, he does for readers what this evening does for you: he makes the AI wave understandable without a technical background. It is where his current thinking lands first.Andy FitzeCo-Founder and Managing Partner, SwissCognitive – AI Ventures, Advisory & ResearchAndy Fitze co-founded SwissCognitive, the global AI hub, together with Dalith Steiger, along with the CognitiveValley Foundation. SwissCognitive reaches a community of over half a million people in more than 100 countries and 30 industries. A venture partner and investor, he advises and serves on boards from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Behind that sit over 25 years of executive technology leadership: Group CIO of RUAG, the Swiss aerospace and defence technology group, with seats on the extended board and the cyber security steering board; IT governance at PostFinance; Swiss CIO Award 2017. He is President of the Swiss IT Leadership Forum, a board member of SwissICT, twice one of Switzerland’s Top 100 Digital Shapers, and one of Forbes’ Top 50 Digital Leaders in the DACH region. He is also an explorer in the old sense: skipper and leader of more than 20 sailing expeditions across all oceans and more than 40 countries, most of them in the high Arctic, a record that earned him membership of The Explorers Club, the New York institution whose members include Bertrand Piccard.We look forward to welcoming you to what promises to be an engaging evening. Don’t miss this opportunity!Claudio Menzon behalf of the IMD Alumni Club of Lausanne committeeJürg FurrerPresident, EPFL Alumni Chapter Vaud-ValaisFor more information, please contact Juerg.furrer@alumni.epfl.ch This event is organised by the IMD Alumni Club of Lausanne in partnership with the EPFL Alumni Chapter Vaud-Valais, as part of our commitment to keeping alumni at the forefront of technological change and strategic innovation.

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