Program Themes Under Development

The RESET London 26 program is being organized around five major families of conversations.

These themes are not abstract topics. They come from ongoing conversations with executives, technologists, creative leaders, strategists, educators, AI developers, software providers, and practitioners across multiple industries.

They reflect real pressure:

shrinking margins, faster expectations, unclear ROI, legal uncertainty, changing client demands, internal resistance, legacy workflows, fragmented pipelines, and the growing need to act without a clear playbook.

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1. From Experimentation to Production Adoption

AI experimentation is happening everywhere, but production adoption remains uneven.

Many companies are testing tools, building internal pilots, accelerating ideation, improving coding workflows, experimenting with image and video generation, and exploring new approaches to visualization, simulation, production, and delivery.

But many initiatives remain stuck at the proof-of-concept stage.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ What is actually moving into production?

→ What remains experimental?

→ Why do so many proof-of-concepts fail to scale?

→ What makes an AI workflow truly production-ready?

→ How do teams evaluate whether a tool is good enough, safe enough, controllable enough, and cost-effective enough?

→ What are the real costs of AI adoption — technical, creative, legal, operational, and financial?

→ How do companies avoid mistaking scattered AI use for real transformation?

This family includes conversations around:

→ hybrid workflows

→ production-ready AI

→ parallel development

→ AI-assisted coding

→ model evaluation

→ pipeline integration

→ tool readiness

→ implementation barriers

→ measurable adoption

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2. Organizations, Talent & the Human Factor

AI and emerging technologies are not simply accelerating existing workflows.

They are forcing companies to rethink how they are organized.

Many organizations remain structured around legacy silos: production, design, engineering, finance, technology, operations, marketing, legal, and leadership. But AI-enabled workflows increasingly require faster decisions, parallel development, shared data, cross-functional teams, and stronger alignment between creative, technical, and business leadership.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ How do organizations redesign themselves for speed?

→ How do companies move beyond siloed innovation?

→ How do CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, CSOs, creative leaders, educators, and production teams align around transformation?

→ What happens when internal experts are ignored?

→ How do companies avoid losing their most forward-thinking people?

→ How can organizations create space for innovation while still delivering under pressure?

→ What does leadership look like when the playbook no longer exists?

This family also includes the human side of AI adoption:

→ fear and resistance

→ changing creative roles

→ hybrid creative/technical profiles

→ innovation time

→ upskilling and reskilling

→ education and workforce readiness

→ creative judgment and authorship

→ the shift from operating tools to directing systems

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3. Economics, Infrastructure & Business Reinvention

Everyone talks about efficiency, but few organizations have a clear way to measure the economic impact of AI and emerging technologies.

Decision-makers are being asked to invest before the answers are fully clear. Technical teams are being asked to prove ROI before systems are mature. Finance leaders are being asked to evaluate tools whose cost models are still evolving.

At the same time, AI and real-time technologies are changing more than workflows. They are raising deeper questions about business models, infrastructure, energy, data centers, operational governance, sovereign compute, cloud strategy, and digital twins.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ How do we measure ROI when workflows are still changing?

→ Which metrics matter — and which ones are misleading?

→ How do we evaluate the cost of inaction?

→ When is AI faster, cheaper, or better — and when is it not?

→ How do usage-based costs, tokens, cloud infrastructure, compute, integration, and training affect the business case?

→ How can financial leaders, technical leaders, and production leaders make decisions together?

→ How do we build confidence to act without pretending certainty exists?

→ How do digital twins, simulation, data centers, AI factories, and infrastructure reshape the business conversation?

→ How do we connect technology adoption with operational governance?

This family includes conversations around:

→ adoption economics

→ business reinvention

→ cost of inaction

→ AI factories

→ sovereign infrastructure

→ cloud and compute

→ data centers

→ digital twins

→ operational governance

→ new service models

→ build / buy / partner decisions

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4. Cross-Industry Transformation

RESET London 26 is designed to connect industries that often face similar challenges from different starting points.

Media & Entertainment, Games, AECO, Automotive, Manufacturing, Education, and Industrial Visualization are all being reshaped by AI, real-time tools, simulation, XR, digital twins, open-source workflows, and new expectations from clients, teams, and markets.

RESET London 26 will explore how different industries are responding — and what they can learn from each other.

This family includes several sector-focused conversations.

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Media & Entertainment / VFX / Animation

VFX and animation studios are under intense pressure from shrinking budgets, client uncertainty, changing audience behavior, and the rise of AI-enabled production.

Some clients are asking for lower costs. Others are prohibiting AI. Some projects may benefit from generative workflows, while others require full creative control, pixel-level precision, and legal certainty.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ How do VFX and animation studios evaluate where AI can be used responsibly?

→ How do client expectations differ between high-budget and lower-budget work?

→ What happens when AI becomes acceptable in some parts of the market but not others?

→ Can service companies remain competitive without moving up the value chain?

→ How do studios balance efficiency, artistry, ethics, IP, and client trust?

→ When does AI reduce cost — and when does it simply move complexity elsewhere?

→ Do studios need to develop their own IP, consulting services, tools, or new business models?

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Games and Real-Time Creation

The games industry has been one of the key drivers of real-time technologies, but it is now facing its own transformation.

AI-assisted development, smaller teams, custom tools, procedural systems, real-time rendering, and new distribution models are changing what it means to build games — and who gets to build them.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ What happens when smaller teams can achieve what once required large studios?

→ Are proprietary engines still a competitive advantage?

→ How do large game companies adapt when development tools become more accessible?

→ What is the future role of creative directors, art directors, technical artists, and AI-assisted developers?

→ How do organizations preserve innovation time under production pressure?

→ What does business reinvention look like for studios built around legacy scale?

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AECO: From Visualization to Design Intelligence

In architecture, engineering, construction, and operations, AI is changing where value sits.

Visualization is becoming more accessible. Clients are becoming more AI-literate. Expectations for faster iteration, instant visuals, interactive experiences, and stronger storytelling are rising.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ What happens when architects can generate high-quality visuals internally?

→ How does visualization evolve when beautiful images are no longer enough?

→ How do firms create value through storytelling, design intelligence, curation, and decision framing?

→ How do AI, digital twins, sustainability, manufacturing, and interoperability reshape architectural practice?

→ How can AECO firms move beyond BIM data toward meaning, semantics, and lifecycle intelligence?

→ How do open standards and platform independence become strategic priorities?

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Automotive, XR and Industrial Design

The automotive industry is under extraordinary pressure.

XR and AI are beginning to move beyond experimentation, especially in engineering, design, simulation, training, visualization, and quality assurance. But many initiatives remain blocked by organizational complexity, siloed data, security concerns, budget ownership, regulation, lack of trust, and the difficulty of moving from innovation teams to production teams.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ Where are XR and AI already used in production?

→ Where are they still stuck in pilot mode?

→ Why do so many automotive POCs fail to scale?

→ How do companies solve fragmented data pipelines?

→ How do innovation teams transfer work into production teams?

→ How can automotive leaders translate the risk of inaction into financial terms?

→ What can European and American manufacturers learn from faster development cycles elsewhere?

→ How do startups and large manufacturers collaborate without killing the speed that makes startups valuable?

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Manufacturing, Industrial Visualization and Operational Transformation

Manufacturing is emerging as one of the most important areas for AI, real-time visualization, XR, simulation, and operational intelligence.

Unlike some creative sectors, manufacturing has urgent needs around optimization, training, quality control, safety, visualization, and operational decision-making. The opportunity is not to create better demos, but to solve real industrial problems.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ How are manufacturers using AI, XR, and real-time visualization to improve operations?

→ What problems are industrial clients trying to solve now?

→ What does success look like from the customer side?

→ How can technology providers bring customers into peer-level conversations without turning the discussion into a sales pitch?

→ How do manufacturing, automotive, AECO, data centers, and simulation overlap?

→ What can industrial transformation teach media and entertainment — and vice versa?

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Education, Skills and Workforce Transformation

AI and emerging technologies are changing not only production, but education.

Universities, schools, and training programs are under pressure to prepare students for industries that are themselves uncertain about what comes next.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ What should the next generation of artists, designers, engineers, and producers learn?

→ How do educators teach tools that are changing every few months?

→ How do schools balance fundamentals with emerging workflows?

→ What happens when students can build, prototype, code, visualize, and produce faster than institutions can adapt?

→ How can education move beyond software training toward judgment, systems thinking, ethics, and creative leadership?

→ What role should industry play in shaping future curricula?

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5. Trust, Standards & Ecosystem Resilience

AI adoption is not only a technical or creative question.

It is also a question of trust.

Organizations must navigate legal constraints, copyright, data governance, IP protection, security, privacy, regulation, client approval, internal policy, public perception, and platform dependency.

At the same time, as workflows become more complex, interoperability becomes a strategic concern. Organizations cannot afford to be trapped in fragile proprietary ecosystems while technology is shifting this fast.

RESET London 26 will explore:

→ How do companies create practical AI guidelines?

→ How do they protect IP, data, and client trust?

→ How do legal, creative, and technical teams make decisions together?

→ How do companies manage the tension between innovation and risk?

→ What happens when some global regions move faster because they are less constrained?

→ How do organizations define responsible adoption without freezing progress?

→ How do organizations avoid dependency on a single platform or vendor?

→ What role should open standards play in future workflows?

→ How do companies move from fragmented pipelines to coherent, scalable systems?

This family includes conversations around:

→ trust and governance

→ provenance and authorship

→ legal risk and client approval

→ data security and IP protection

→ open standards

→ open source

→ USD, glTF, MaterialX and related standards

→ engine-agnostic workflows

→ pipeline resilience

→ public-private innovation ecosystems

→ national labs, universities, studios and startups

Proposed Working Sessions

The final working session structure will be confirmed once participants and champions are finalized.

For now, the proposed working-session families are:

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Working Session 1

Hybrid Workflows & Production-Ready AI

This session will build on the work initiated at RESET LA 26 and explore what it takes to move AI-enabled workflows from experimentation to production.

The conversation will focus on practical implementation, pipeline integration, predictability, control, and trust.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Judith Crow — SideFX Software

→ Danilo Papić — Netfork

→ John Canning — AMD

→ Ava Oppenheimer — Triato

→ Addie Reiss — Digital Nation Entertainment

→ Additional contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ What does “production-ready AI” actually mean?

→ How can AI be integrated into existing pipelines without breaking trust, quality, or predictability?

→ Where are hybrid workflows already creating measurable value?

→ What needs to remain human-led, human-supervised, or human-approved?

→ What technical, legal, and organizational infrastructure is required?

→ What practical pilots could be launched after RESET London 26?

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Working Session 2

Creative Roles, Education & the New Talent Stack

AI and real-time technologies are accelerating the convergence of creative and technical roles.

This session will explore how studios, schools, and companies need to rethink skills, responsibilities, training, and career paths.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Peter Nofz — Rodeo FX

→ Nandhini Giri — Purdue University

→ Joann Denning — Diablo Valley College

→ Kevin Leeper — Diablo Valley College

→ Glenn Goldman — New Jersey Institute of Technology

→ Rochele Gloor — RGLOOR lab

→ Edward Dawson-Taylor — CG Pro

→ John Canning — AMD

→ Additional contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ What new hybrid profiles are emerging between artists, technologists, supervisors, educators, and producers?

→ How should companies train teams for AI-enabled and real-time workflows?

→ What should schools teach when tools are changing faster than curricula?

→ How do we preserve fundamentals while preparing students for new workflows?

→ How do we help students use AI critically rather than passively?

→ How can education and industry work together more effectively?

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Working Session 3

AECO: AI, Digital Twins & Organizational Adaptation

This session will explore how architecture, engineering, construction, and design organizations can move from impressive demonstrations to operational transformation.

The discussion will focus on adoption, data readiness, organizational structures, simulation, digital twins, sustainability, interoperability, and the integration of AI and real-time technologies into everyday practice.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ David Gillespie — Foster + Partners

→ Nils-Peter Fischer — Zaha Hadid Architects

→ Kerenza Harris — SCI-Arc

→ Reeti Gupta — Newcom & Boyd

→ Austin Reed — HNTB

→ Mark Kauffman — WSP

→ David Ayeni — Vistergy / Bentley ecosystem

→ Additional contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ Why does the gap between technological capability and enterprise adoption remain so wide?

→ How can AECO firms integrate AI, real-time visualization, simulation, and digital twins into everyday practice?

→ What organizational changes are needed for adoption at scale?

→ What does “AI-ready” project data mean?

→ How can design intent, sustainability, cost, regulation, and constructability be connected earlier?

→ How can AECO move beyond BIM data toward meaning, semantics, and lifecycle intelligence?

→ What can AECO learn from VFX, games, automotive, and manufacturing?

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Working Session 4

Automotive, Manufacturing, XR & Industrial Transformation

This session will explore how automotive, manufacturing, and industrial organizations are using real-time technologies, XR, simulation, AI, and digital twins to transform design, collaboration, decision-making, operations, and customer experience.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Jan Pflueger — advisXR / Audi Design

→ Jörg Dietrich — MHP – A Porsche Company

→ Pierre-Adrien Forestier — 3Dverse

→ Volker / Flying Shapes ecosystem

→ Additional automotive, manufacturing, and industrial design contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ How are XR and real-time technologies changing design review and decision-making?

→ How can AI and simulation reduce iteration cycles without reducing quality?

→ How can digital assets flow more effectively from concept to engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and customer experience?

→ What are the adoption barriers inside large industrial organizations?

→ Why do so many POCs fail to scale?

→ How can startups and large companies collaborate without killing speed?

→ Which lessons from automotive and manufacturing can transfer to AECO, M&E, and games?

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Working Session 5

Open Standards, Open Source & Pipeline Resilience

As workflows become more complex, interoperability becomes a strategic question.

This session will explore how organizations can avoid fragile, proprietary, or overly dependent pipelines while building more resilient, open, and scalable systems.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Neil Trevett — Khronos Group

→ David Morin — Academy Software Foundation

→ Francesco Siddi — Blender

→ Emilio Coppola — Godot

→ Jason Schleifer — Foundry

→ Judith Crow — SideFX Software

→ Additional contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ How do organizations avoid dependency on a single platform or vendor?

→ What role should open standards play in future workflows?

→ How do USD, glTF, MaterialX, open-source tools, and engine-agnostic strategies support resilience?

→ How do different industries define interoperability differently?

→ What happens when game engines are no longer the default answer?

→ How do companies build pipelines that can survive rapid technology shifts?

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Working Session 6

Trust, Governance, Provenance & Responsible Adoption

This session will address one of the most urgent issues around AI adoption: trust.

The discussion will explore the legal, ethical, operational, and creative conditions required for companies to adopt AI-enabled workflows responsibly.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Addie Reiss — Digital Nation Entertainment

→ Ava Oppenheimer — Triato

→ Michele Sciolette — Cinesite

→ Andy McNamara — Cinesite

→ Additional legal, production, technology, and governance contributors to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ How do we build trust in AI-assisted workflows?

→ How do we track provenance, authorship, consent, and creative contribution?

→ What does responsible AI adoption mean in production environments?

→ How can companies manage compliance without blocking experimentation?

→ How do we balance creative freedom, client confidence, and legal risk?

→ What practical governance frameworks are needed now?

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Working Session 7

Adoption Economics, Infrastructure & New Operating Models

This session will focus on the business impact of AI and emerging technologies.

The goal is not simply to ask how tools work, but how companies need to rethink operations, economics, partnerships, value creation, infrastructure, and long-term positioning.

Potential contributors currently under discussion include:

→ Paul Salvini

→ Rick Stringfellow — Electronic Arts

→ Gilles Gaillard

→ Sixte de Vauplane — Animaj

→ Lincoln Wallen — Framestore / Company 3

→ David Ayeni — Vistergy / Bentley ecosystem

→ Sol Rogers — Magnopus / UK creative technology ecosystem

→ Additional studio, technology, and enterprise leaders to be confirmed

Key questions may include:

→ How do companies measure the real ROI of AI and real-time technology adoption?

→ Which investments are strategic, and which are distractions?

→ How do companies avoid great ideas with no adoption?

→ What new business models are emerging for studios, technology providers, and creative organizations?

→ How should companies decide what to build internally, what to buy, and what to outsource?

→ How will AI change client relationships, service models, staffing, bidding, and delivery?

→ How do cloud infrastructure, data centers, AI factories, digital twins, and operational governance reshape the business conversation?