Opening keynotes: Trustworthy AI - Trust by design for the AI-native telco

Headliners/Keynotes

As AI scales across the telco, trust becomes the defining factor for success. These keynotes will explore how leaders can move from principles to proof - embedding accountability, control and transparency into AI systems that can stand up to real-world scrutiny.

10:00-10:05 Welcome: Innovate Americas host  
Aaron Boasman-Patel, VP Knowledge and Innovation, TM Forum 

10:05-10:20 Built to scale, faster: Americas race to 2030  

• The race is on: from AI ambition to the autonomous enterprise 
• America's legacy challenge and why standing still is no longer an option 
• The network becomes the product: delivering the outcomes customers will pay for 
• Industrialization and scale: How TM Forum is helping operators move from pilots to production at scale 
• Trust as the foundation of AI-native growth 
• Winning together: building America's autonomous future, faster 

Nik Willetts, President & CEO, TM Forum 

10:20-10:35 Keynote: Scaling AI from experimentation to enterprise capability 

• What telecom leaders must rethink first 
• What breaks first when AI moves into production.  
• Where leadership, not technology teams, must now take ownership 
• The trade-offs between speed, innovation and risk 
• What telecom leaders are getting wrong about scaling AI safely 

Yigal Elbaz, SVP Network CTO, AT&T 

10:35-10:50 Keynote: Generating AI ROI by innovating with trust  

• Overcoming the trust gap to realize the ROI on AI 
• Why responsible AI is actually an engineering function combined with ethical principles  
• The difference between being trustworthy and being trusted - and why they’re both crucial to successful AI adoption and ROI 
• How data and AI literacy is a key component in long-term success 
• Designing data and AI initiatives that stand up to regulatory, board-level, and public scrutiny 

Pam Snively, Chief Data & Trust Officer, TELUS   

10:50-11:10 Fireside chat: What does it actually take to become an AI-native operator? 

• What changes first when AI moves beyond experimentation?  
• How do operators redesign operating models around AI?  
• Who owns AI across the enterprise?  
• How do you build trust into AI from day one?  
• Where should human accountability remain?  
• How do you balance innovation with governance?  
• What separates AI leaders from everyone else? 

Andy Markus, Chief Data Officer, AT&T 

11:10-11:30 Session tba
Speaker(s) tba

11:30-11:32 Closing remarks  
Aaron Boasman-Patel, VP Knowledge & Innovation, TM Forum