Generating Real Business Value with AI

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As we transition from the exploratory phase of artificial intelligence into an era marked by tangible, measurable business impact, it is crucial for leaders at all levels—executive, strategic, and technical—to understand how AI is shaping industries. In this keynote, Markus Egger, an experienced technologist, business strategist, Microsoft Regional Director, and Founder of the CODE Group, will guide you through the practical integration of AI within diverse applications, from traditional desktop environments to modern web-based platforms, and beyond.

Join Tim Locke, Director of Business Development and Data Architect at CODE GROUP for a compelling 30-minute session designed for senior leaders an developers alike. Discover the top reasons AI projects fail—from unclear objectives and poor data quality to inadequate stakeholder engagement and scalability issues. With real-world examples and actionable strategies, Tim will guide you through avoiding these common pitfalls, helping you steer your AI initiatives toward success.

Nobody wants to miss out on the AI bandwagon, but effective leaders must ensure that AI projects are impactful and provide a good value for the time and money invested. AI has the potential to make truly meaningful improvements in most businesses, but only if projects are well directed and monitored. In this session, Mike Yeager, CEO of CODE Consulting and experienced AI implementer, is going to share strategies for focusing on AI initiatives that will succeed, pay off with business value, and align with your strategic initiatives. Join Mike for a discussion of properly defining and scoping AI projects, planning for success, and evaluating return on investment. We’ll evaluate both the opportunities and challenges of AI, and separate reality from hype. We’ll look at concrete examples and examine post-mortem reviews of some real-world projects. We’ll discuss collecting metrics to course correct and to measure success.

As the initial fascination with AI transitions into a demand for genuine, sustainable business value, this panel discussion promises a deep dive into the practical aspects of implementing AI in the enterprise environment. Guided by Laurabeth Baker, a panel of seasoned experts from the CODE Group—including its founder Markus Egger and leading executives—will explore the nuances of integrating AI into business systems to drive real-world outcomes.

This interactive session will address the critical questions surrounding AI deployment: How can we build systems that deliver not just technological advancements but true business value? What are the proven strategies, and what pitfalls should companies avoid? Panelists will share insights from their extensive experience in developing and managing AI solutions across various domains, providing attendees with a comprehensive understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and how to pivot away from the AI hype towards creating impactful, efficient AI-driven applications.

Participants are encouraged to engage with the panel, pose questions, and discuss scenarios ahead of time, ensuring a rich, participant-focused dialogue. Join us to gain actionable insights and strategies from top AI leaders that you can immediately apply to your enterprise AI initiatives.

Join Philipp Bauer, Senior Software Engineer at CODE Consulting, as he shares his expertise on harnessing machine learning models to drive innovation in your applications. With the rapid advancements in AI tools, it's become increasingly clear that these technologies offer immense value and utility for businesses.

Tailored for developers at the mid-to-senior level, this is a session to shed light on the practical applications of machine learning beyond LLMs. We will take a look under the hood of popular models, explore what models are available to help solve your next challenge and finally, we'll delve into how open-source models can serve as a springboard for customization to your unique use case and how they can be trained using your own dataset.

In the previous panel session today, we focused on the business process of how a company might integrate AI. Now we'll answer your more deeply technical questions.

This is sort of a “software developer to software developer” Q&A session. Some answers will certainly begin with “it depends” and that's fine. We welcome anyone from the previous part of the day to stay. The technical answers we offer may influence how you talk about AI with your IT team.