Sarah Barr-Miller

Director of Data and Automation British Airways

Fireside chat:
The Art of The Possible: Building a Resilient AI Backbone and Workforce at British Airways
British Airways is reshaping how it builds technology, uses data, and designs its workforce around AI and agents, with a deliberate focus on sustainability over hype. In this fireside chat we get a glimpse into how this global company is building the foundational "plumbing" for AI, rethinking operating models so humans and agents work together at both local and departmental scale, and making practical investment choices in a world where AI is becoming more expensive, politicised and embedded in every tool.

• Rearchitecting digital and data backbones to balance cloud flexibility, cost control, and value that can be traced all the way back to data

• Designing operating models where agents augment humans at both process and department level, without "AI-ing away" the critical junior roles that build future leaders

• Navigating rising costs, geopolitical risks and vendor lock in of AI so that platforms, people and capabilities remain resilient in the long term

Panel discussion:
Entering The Global Stage of AI Ownership: Europe Taking Back Control of AI
Europe is entering a decisive moment in the global contest for AI ownership. While U.S. and Asian multinationals are investing at a scale that dwarfs EU and UK&I efforts, European enterprises are being forced to confront a hard question: who ultimately controls the AI they depend on? From data residency and model access to infrastructure sovereignty and vendor lock in, the stakes have never been higher for leaders who must keep their operations secure, compliant and strategically independent. This panel examines what enterprise leaders must do to safeguard their data, maintain meaningful control over their AI systems, and avoid becoming dependent on foreign providers whose priorities may not align with European regulatory, ethical or economic interests.

• Exploring what true control looks like in practice, from data, to digital, to AI sovereignty

• Challenging leaders to rethink geography as an architectural choice, sovereignty as a business imperative and AI ownership as a defining factor of competitiveness

• Accelerating competitiveness for the purpose of strategic independence, reduced reliance on foreign multinationals and minimised vendor lock-ins