AI Hype vs. Reality: The Risks and Rewards to Know Right Now

Join us for Symposium 2

AI Hype vs. Reality: The Risks and Rewards That Every Investor, Corporate, and Consumer Needs to Know Right Now.

The AI investment cycle has entered a phase of dangerous circularity. Are you funding enterprise-grade value, or merely subsidizing the next round of unquantified technical debt and liability?

For CAIOs, CTOs, and institutional investors, the "low-hanging fruit" era of AI experimentation is over. The challenge has shifted from basic capability to capital efficiency, data provenance, and long-term defensibility. In an environment where foundation model providers are aggressively shifting liability downstream, understanding the "under-the-hood" forensic reality of your AI stack is the only way to protect enterprise value.

This briefing provides the high-stakes intelligence required for rigorous diligence, effective implementation, and navigating the complex "merry-go-round" of AI venture and corporate investment.

High-Stakes Strategy: Diligence, Data, and De-Risking

We move beyond the hype to address the granular levers of AI ROI and risk management:

• The Diligence Evolution: Investors must look past "growth at all costs" to audit Governance Maturity. We identify the specific indicators that separate a scalable, exit-ready AI asset from a liability-heavy experiment that will fail the first major audit.

• Arbitrage vs. Innovation: Discover how to spot the "circular investment" trap—where companies utilize AI to create perceived value that lacks a sustainable moats. We discuss how to identify true IP in an era of commoditized LLMs.

• The Data Equity Crisis: With state and global privacy laws reclassifying training data as a distinct compliance category, "data hoarding" has become a strategic liability. Learn how to architect a data management strategy that secures your "right to operate" without stifling innovation.

• Implementation Pitfalls: Why do 80% of enterprise AI pilots fail at the six-month mark? We analyze the "brittle model" syndrome and how to build resilient, adaptive systems that survive shifting regulatory floors.

Who Is This For?

This symposium is engineered for the high-stakes stakeholders of the AI economy: Institutional Investors, Family Offices, and Venture Capitalists looking to move past hype-based valuations to audit true governance maturity; CEOs, COOs, and C-Suite Builders who must bridge the gap between board-level promises and operational reality; and CAIOs, CIOs, and CTOs tasked with architecting a unified Enterprise AI OS while neutralizing hidden technical debt. It is equally essential for Corporate Strategists, Operators, and Legal Teams seeking to turn regulatory complexity into a competitive moat, as well as Policy Makers who require a grounded, forensic understanding of how private sector AI governance impacts market stability and public trust.

Keynote: Julie Saslow Schroeder - Harvard Business Review Council.
Top 25 Global Privacy Expert

Julie Saslow Schroeder protects companies from risk and architects legal frameworks that turn regulatory complexity into strategic advantage. A graduate of American University Washington College of Law (J.D., cum laude) with international legal studies at the University of Edinburgh, she brings two decades of global experience at the intersection of trial law, constitutional appellate work, and enterprise AI in-house counsel. From Bush v. Gore to Philip Morris v. Williams—the landmark case establishing modern corporate punitive liability standards—she shaped legal precedent before pioneering AI governance in 2006 as the founding General Counsel of CodeRyte. There, she built the governance architecture supporting growth to a $270M valuation and subsequent acquisition by 3M.

As a seven-time General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer across venture-backed and Fortune 100 AI organizations, Julie has delivered measurable business outcomes: 10x valuation growth through AI product strategy, 50–75% quarter-over-quarter revenue acceleration, and 400% sales increases by restructuring legal operations as a growth function. Recognized as a Top 25 Global Privacy Expert (2024) and Top 30 Global Privacy Expert (2025, 2026), she serves on the Harvard Business Review Council and HBR's Special Advisory Board on Data and Analytics. She is also a trusted expert source for Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal on AI data risk and privacy.

Julie leads by building compliance and ethics as foundational infrastructure—not constraints. Across every organization she has led, her companies maintained flawless no-loss records—no breaches, no regulatory actions, and no litigation—while accelerating innovation and market capture. At the Critical Decisions Series, she will reveal how sophisticated companies build AI governance that compounds value rather than constrains it.

Symposium 2: "AI Hype vs. Reality: The Risks and Rewards That Every Investor, Corporate, and Consumer Needs to Know Right Now" takes place Wednesday, February 25th, 2026 at 9:00 AM PT / 5:00 PM UK.

When organizational futures depend on AI-enabled decisions made in seconds, leadership teams require more than theoretical frameworks—they need proven methodologies from pioneers who've solved these challenges at the highest levels.

The Critical Decisions in AI Series represents the premier global forum for dialogue and discourse where CTOs, CIOs, VCs, Startup Founders, Investors, Family Offices, Industry Experts, Inventors, AI Strategists, and AI Operators collaborate to architect the next generation of AI-human decision systems. This executive forum convenes the world's foremost practitioners and industry experts to address the most consequential challenges in enterprise AI deployment and investment.

Mark Montgemery - Panel

Mark Montgomery is the Founder & CEO of KYield. He is the inventor and architect of the KOS (EAI OS) and Synthetic Genius Machine (SGM), based on three decades of R&D. Mark is a 12x entrepreneur, was an early booster to Microsoft (1983) & Google (1997), a venture capitalist (2001-2011), a business consultant (1985-1995), and contributing guest at the Santa Fe Institute (2009-2015). He is a prolific author who has written hundreds of articles, papers, and book chapters.

Lauren Y. Pruitt - Panel

Lauren Y. Pruitt is Senior Counsel at The Hershey Company, where she provides strategic legal guidance on complex commercial transactions and corporate matters. Ms. Pruitt has extensive experience at the intersection of artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and privacy compliance, developed through her work with leading technology and healthcare companies. During her tenure at 3M Health Information Systems, she managed intellectual property development for natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence initiatives, working directly with technical teams to identify and submit patentable innovations in neural networks and deep learning processes. As the division's compliance program manager, she advised on open source software use and governance, managed the division's HIPAA privacy and security compliance programs as well as its HITECH compliance initiatives.

Subsequent to 3M, Ms. Pruitt served as Counsel for Inovalon, a healthcare tech company where she advised on a variety of technical agreements and healthcare data privacy issues. In her current role at Hershey, she continues to provide guidance and ensure cross-functional compliance with AI use and governance in the context of marketing and advertising. Lauren holds a Juris Doctor from the Howard University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and is admitted to practice in Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Dan Blake - Panel

Dan Blake is a consequence‑driven executive advisor and forensic business-data strategist who helps global financial institutions, consulting firms, and boards navigate existential regulatory, data, and AI risks. Over two decades working for numerous consulting firms, financial service firms, and various industries, he has enabled more than £200M in consulting revenues while mitigating $20Bn+ in regulatory exposure across fraud, sanctions, financial crime, and high‑stakes investigations.

He specialises in transforming complex data, risk, and governance failures into fiduciary clarity for CEOs, boards, and investors. His work has protected billions in assets under management, supported criminal and regulatory proceedings across jurisdictions, and architected global forensic and AI‑driven oversight programmes for Tier‑1 banks and multinational corporations.

As a Governance Awards assessor for the Australasian Reporting Awards, he reviews how organisations communicate their governance structures, board oversight, risk management, and ethical frameworks within their annual reports.

A recognised thought leader in AI governance, data strategy, and consequence architecture, Dan has authored influential frameworks, advised award bodies, contributed to governance reform dialogues, and collaborated with leading academics and industry pioneers. His signature ethos - “I don’t sell hours, I sell consequence” - reflects his ability to compress complexity into evidence‑led outcomes that activate legitimacy, protect enterprise value, and shape executive decision‑making. Helping organisations reach improved outcomes and finding the truth.

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