Under the Hood of Agentic AI: An Executive Primer

Event details

Date
Wednesday, 24 June - 12:00
Place
Novotel Genève Centre
Genre
Conferences
Organiser
INSEAD Alumni Association Switzerland
Under the Hood of Agentic AI: An Executive Primer - Conferences - Novotel Genève Centre

Description

Under the Hood of Agentic AI: An Executive PrimerWednesday, 24 June 2026   Almost every organization is implementing or thinking about implementing AI agents. Yet too often, business executives delegate the question to IT, treating it as an infrastructure decision rather than a strategic one. That is a mistake. Every choice in AI implies trade-offs in strategy, operations, organizational design, and talent. This session unpacks four things:  From prompting to agents: The shift from chat interfaces to agentic AI, and why this architecture changes what AI can do inside the enterprise. Under the hood: A live look at a conversational agent and the actual development environment used to build agents today, with concrete examples of skills and agents in action. No technical deep dives. From roles to workflows: Why AI does not automate jobs but tasks, and what it means to lead when leaders become orchestrators of agents alongside people. The right questions: A practical lens for evaluating opportunities, governance, and trade-offs, and the right questions to ask your teams, your vendors, and yourself.  This is not another conceptual talk. You will see the actual coding environment used to build agents, hear an AI thought leader unpack what works and what is hype, and leave with a working mental model and a clear point of view. We will run as a working lunch, with discussion and Q&A flowing over the meal. A flying dessert will be served during the closing conversation. Most executive AI events stay in slideware. This one does not. Join us for a focused, practitioner-led session designed to leave you sharper on a topic your board is already asking about.SpeakerThe session is led by Sam Bourton, co-founder of QuantumBlack and an ex-McKinsey AI Partner, who advises AI business leaders, investors, and startup founders, and who codes and orchestrates his own agents.   Sam BourtonAI Founder, AdvisorFormer Co-founder & CTO, QuantumBlack (acquired by McKinsey)Sam co-founded QuantumBlack as CTO in 2009. Following its acquisition by McKinsey to become its AI Center of Excellence, he founded McKinsey’s AI innovation lab and led AI projects with a number of international organisations in Geneva. Today he advises business leaders, investors, and startup founders, codes his own AI agents, and continues to explore the frontier of applied AI technologies.   Programme12:00 Welcome and moderator-led opening12:10 Presentation and live demo12:30 Working lunch, with starter and main course served13:00 Open discussion and Q&A, with flying dessert served14:00 Event endsKey FactsWhen: Wednesday, 24 June 2026Where: Novotel Genève Centre, Rue de Zurich 19, 1201 GenèveTickets: CHF 70 NAA Members (paid-up) // CHF 95 Alumni non-members and guestsTicketing closes on 19 June 2026 INSEAD Alumni Association SwitzerlandRicardo Arce MBA’05D, Event Organizer and Geneva Chapter Committee MemberDoina Cebotari MBA’13J, Event Organizer and Geneva Chapter Committee MemberVictor Svensson EMCCC’16S, Event Organizer and Geneva Chapter Committee MemberMayssa Scheib, MBA’14J, Geneva Chapter Presidentevents@insead.ch  

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