TCS Summit Europe Live blog
Over three days, senior executives, policymakers, innovators, and global thinkers explored what it takes to move from infrastructure to intelligence and how businesses turn AI ambition into competitive advantage. Conversations covered the future of enterprise AI, Europe’s push for technology sovereignty and the redesign of work, alongside the systems, capabilities and leadership needed to scale intelligence securely, responsibly and at pace. Through fireside chats, high-impact panels, and candid conversations with leaders from sectors including banking, aviation, and retail, we brought you the key updates and insights as they happened. You can see the agenda here.
Previous days
A busy afternoon in St Julian’s Malta, with delegates focusing on how enterprises can build the right infrastructure and governance, embed AI into business processes, and combine machine capabilities with human creativity and imagination.
Here are the key takeaways from day one of the Summit:
We will be back tomorrow for more thought-provoking discussions, chats, and panels. You can see the agenda for day two here.
Dr. Merritt Moore gave an address on the intersection between intelligence and imagination, using her own experiences as proof that artistic imagination and scientific innovation can work well together.
She began by asking the audience some questions. What happens to humans in this new era of AI and robotics? What happens to our creativity? What happens to our purpose? What happens to our relationships?
Drawing on her personal experiences, Dr. Moore spoke about how finding different ways of looking at challenges can unlock different approaches. She is a physicist and a professional ballet dancer, and has been told repeatedly throughout her life that these disciplines are incompatible, but rather than seeing physics and dance as competing interests, she found they enriched each other.
Speaking at the Summit, Dr. Moore explained how concepts including force, torque, momentum, and centre of mass gave her new ways of understanding movement, and how at the same time, dancing helped her look at her physics thesis from a different angle. Dr. Moore acknowledged how this interdisciplinary thinking can force us to ask different questions about the same problem, which can lead to new answers.
She used the “four-minute mile” as an example of how our beliefs can shape what we think is possible. For years, running a mile in under four minutes was widely considered an impossible barrier. Then the athlete Roger Bannister broke it, and soon after, other runners began doing the same.
Dr. Moore said that the significance of this wasn't that Roger Bannister achieved something extraordinary, but that by breaking the barrier, he changed what other people believed they could achieve.
She used this as a metaphor for AI and human creativity, and how sometimes the biggest barrier isn’t a lack of ability or technology, but a lack of imagination, we can become constrained by what we believe is possible.
Dr. Moore also shared that while we ask the same questions of AI repeatedly, we may get some useful outcomes, but we will miss a bigger opportunity. Instead, she encouraged us to ask: how can AI help us create, explore, and feel in ways we couldn't before? What assumptions can it help us challenge? How can interacting with a different kind of intelligence expand human potential?
We need to look beyond AI as a tool for efficiency and discover its broader possibilities.
Futurist Sophie Hackford shared how AI’s next wave may come from new forms of sensing and access to information that humans currently can’t perceive or process, as she encouraged the audience to push beyond the current AI conversation.
She discussed how progress doesn’t just mean more sophisticated models and greater energy consumption, and why we need to consider whether machines could eventually detect things humans cannot, including environmental threats and chemicals, like smoke and signals associated with disease.
Hackford also spoke about robotics and autonomy, noting that as AI becomes embedded in machines, robots will start to operate, and make decisions autonomously, including in environments that are difficult or dangerous for humans.
She explored the idea that space is open for business, adding how we are going to hear a lot about space AI in the future and how what happens there could become a testbed for what happens on Earth. Hackford presented her understanding that there is likely to be an emergence of an ecosystem of satellites, computing, sensing, manufacturing, and robotics that could form part of the infrastructure supporting AI.
Her main message was that we all need to think beyond how we are using AI today and think much more creatively about how the convergence of all the technologies that are currently developing rapidly are likely to impact our lives. It’s about imagining entirely new ways that intelligence, machines, biology, and infrastructure can come together.
Day one of the Summit is officially underway, with a joint address from Sapthagiri Chapalapalli, Head of Europe at TCS and Vinay Singhvi, Head of UK and Ireland at TCS, who welcomed delegates and said the Summit is designed to be a celebration of the relationships TCS has built and the work it is achieving with its clients. They shared how they are looking forward to sharing perspectives on challenges, learning from one another, and taking inspiration home.
Vinay Singhvi reflected on a year of significant unpredictability. He highlighted the growing prominence of AI in business conversations, describing the rapid development, and maturity of AI as one of the most significant changes of the past year.
“TCS is investing heavily in AI and building new capabilities to stay at the forefront of technological change,” he said. This includes an AI Experience Zone and an AI-native Creative Engineering Studio, designed to explore how emerging technologies can be translated into practical applications and business value.
Sapthagiri Chapalapalli highlighted the challenges facing many enterprises today, including the need to improve efficiency, modernise technology, strengthen cybersecurity, and navigate issues around sovereignty. “AI presents a significant opportunity to help address some of these challenges,” he said, but that requires collaboration.
The Summit is about bringing together experts, customers, and partners to explore how AI can move from a topic of discussion to a source of real business outcomes.
“The focus is deliberately on making AI real and practical,” Chapalapalli said, moving the conversation to explore how organisations can implement AI, scale it, and realise value from it. The agenda has been designed to take the discussion beyond technology and business, bringing in a broader range of perspectives, ideas, and voices to challenge thinking and enrich the conversation.
You can follow the rest of the Summit on this page, with regular updates, and see the agenda, here.
Hello and welcome to the TCS Summit Europe 2026, which is getting underway in Malta, bringing together business and technology leaders to explore the rapidly changing world of artificial intelligence and the future of enterprise in this new era.
The opening address is due from Sapthagiri Chapalapalli, Head of Europe, TCS and Vinay Singhvi, Head of UK and Ireland, TCS, and we’re also looking forward to the first keynote from Futurist Sophie Hackford.
Later, quantum physicist and professional ballerina Dr. Merritt Moore will explore the intersection of AI, robotics, and human creativity, asking how technology can expand what people are capable of.
Lots of interesting speakers and ideas on the first day of this three-day Summit. Follow here for our live coverage and key takeaways from Malta.
On a busy second day at the Summit, the conversation moved from AI experimentation to AI execution, with leaders focusing on judgement, governance, scale, and Europe’s position in a competitive global AI landscape.
Here are the key takeaways from the day.
1. The biggest challenge we face with AI is around judgement: Opening the day, TCS CEO K. Krithivasan argued that the biggest challenge for leaders is deciding which problems are worth solving. That means striking a balance between sharing knowledge with AI agents and protecting competitive differentiation and a balance between increasing AI autonomy and maintaining human control.
He pointed to TCS’ use of a digital twin for an automotive OEM as a practical example. The technology helped predict when customers were likely to need their next service, driving measurable gains in revenue and footfall.
2. AI governance and regulation is a geopolitical question: Marietje Schaake, a non-resident fellow at Stanford University, who was a Member of the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI and served as a Member of European Parliament, argued that AI companies should not be left to define their own guardrails, given the tension between commercial incentives and the public interest.
Her message was clear: “the model did it” cannot become an excuse for avoiding accountability. Human institutions must remain responsible for the decisions surrounding AI.
Schaake also raised broader geopolitical questions about which countries will shape global AI rules, given that many of the world’s leading AI companies are based in the US.
3. Dare to experiment: H&M shows what AI-native can look like: H&M Global CTO Jan Ziskasen offered one of the clearest examples of AI moving beyond pilots and into everyday operations. The retailer has now 70% of its code written by agents and 95% of code reviews driven by agents. For H&M, experimentation is becoming part of the operating model, and that’s helping teams test, explore and scale ideas faster while embedding AI into daily workflows.
4. Enterprise AI is moving from caution to conviction: TCS Chief AI Officer Amit Kapur highlighted another significant shift: over the past six months, enterprise leaders have moved from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale. “The change isn’t just about technology,” he said, “pointing out that trust, governance, security, and change management are essential ingredients for becoming AI-native enterprises that scale.”
5. Europe’s AI sovereignty debate is a question of risk, cost, and control: The closing panel brought together perspectives from Mistral AI, PAC, DSB, and Länsförsäkringar Bank to explore what AI sovereignty really means for European organisations.
The consensus was not that Europe needs to build everything itself, but that sovereignty needs to be framed as a risk, cost, and competitiveness trade-off that needs to be assessed workload by workload.
A live poll showed that most organisations are currently only partly prepared to switch AI providers, highlighting how early the debate remains. But with panellists expecting significant change over the next year, this could become one of the defining strategic questions for European businesses.
We will be back tomorrow with a focus on AI-native Enterprises and collaboration for the future. You can see the agenda and speakers for the final day here.
The final panel of the day discussed European digital and AI sovereignty, and how much control European companies and governments should retain over their AI models, data, infrastructure, and technology providers.
The four panellists were Marjorie Janiewicz, CRO, Mistral AI; Daniella Campbell, CEO, PAC; Michael Moesgaard CIO, DSB and Tobias Ternstedt, CIO, Länsförsäkringar Bank.
Key themes of the discussion:
Marjorie Janiewicz said Mistral's open-weight approach means organisations can understand and adapt AI models rather than trusting third parties. She noted that Mistral’s clients in defence, the public sector, manufacturing and finance, already demand full model ownership for critical workloads.
Daniela Campbell argued that there is a growing need for a European or at least European-regulated cloud alternative, and the skills to run it. She said sovereignty isn't binary, it is about balancing risk against competitiveness.
Michael Musgard said that total independence isn't realistic, so the goal is knowing which dependencies carry an acceptable risk and having alternatives as a backup. While Tobias Sternstadt talked about trust and sectors that need to foster trust, like banking. “Sovereignty is a business-risk question, where companies have to decide which risks are acceptable given the use case,” he said.
The panel rounded off today’s main events, with delegates now participating in networking activities.
Who is ultimately responsible for the AI agenda? That was the central question examined by Marietje Schaake, a non-resident fellow at Stanford University, who addressed the conference.
She began by asking who sets the boundaries, who decides what risks are acceptable, and who should control and be accountable for the risks created by AI, particularly the powerful systems being developed by large technology companies.
Those who have the biggest stakes, for example companies who are discovering and producing these tools, should not be in charge of the guardrails, she argued. AI companies shouldn’t be the sole judges of what risks society should accept because they may have incentives that conflict with the public interest. AI systems can produce consequences that even their creators didn't anticipate.
In other words, if an AI system causes significant harm, can a technology company effectively say, `The model did it,’ or does a human ultimately have to be accountable?
Companies want to innovate, compete, release products and make money, which creates a potential conflict when those same companies are also deciding how much risk is acceptable for everyone else, she insisted. Governments and other independent institutions therefore have to have a role.
“Banks and financial institutions are a good example of this,” she said, they don't simply let an AI system decide whether the bank is complying with financial regulations. Human institutions, for example regulators, executives, auditors, and others, have the ultimate responsibility.
While Europe has historically set global tech rules through the “Brussels effect,” Schaake believes US regulation needs to have a bigger global impact because the leading AI companies are American. She also noted that growing geopolitical competition around AI is influencing policy discussions and approaches to regulation. In her view, the global nature of AI development will require greater international cooperation and shared rules to ensure consistent governance and accountability across borders.
Since ChatGPT’s breakthrough, companies have been under pressure to launch increasingly powerful systems quickly, which has meant insufficient attention to unintended consequences and potential harms and to regulation.
Schaake said Europe needs to move beyond regulation alone and build greater technological sovereignty, resilience, and strategic capability, while the UK must decide whether to align more closely with EU tech rules or pursue a separate path.
Her overriding point is that AI governance should not be left entirely to the AI industry, we need independent oversight, rules and clearly assigned human accountability. She argued that cybersecurity should be built in from the start, with companies and governments reducing vulnerable dependencies and making cybersecurity and AI safety a priority rather than an afterthought.
The next session invited speakers to share pitches on how AI can be industrialised across the technology stack. As with any technology transformation, there are many routes to success. Here are some of the ways leading organisations are approaching the challenge.
Empowering the people: The biggest technology transformations are never really about technology, said Liz Wright, Director of Customer & Commercial Delivery, British Airways. Instead, they come down to three things: trust, team and common purpose. Leaders, she said, must consider what transformations mean for people, and that is front of mind for her and her team at British Airways. Deployments are empowering colleagues, helping them to overcome challenges, such as absorbing more knowledge, and allowing them to instead focus on what they do best – exercising judgement and delivering better outcomes for customers.
Training all the right muscles: How is AI deployment like Olympic weightlifting? According to Tariq Surty, CTO, Legal & General, both disciplines amount to a compound movement. In weightlifting, success depends on a combination of strength, flexibility, technique, agility, and bravery. In AI, a similarly holistic outlook is required. Data quality, engineering capabilities, and innovative cultures are just a few of the areas that must be simultaneously addressed to succeed. Furthermore, if one area is neglected, weaknesses are amplified. By taking a systems-level approach, he said, AI ambitions can be truly realised.
Transforming now, planning for what’s next: A cornerstone of transformation at Rabobank has been organisation-wide alignment. Irene Bakker CTO - Head of Risk & Finance Tech, shared how before the AI age, they had over 1,000 squads around the world who were empowered to implement innovations where they saw opportunity. But, in an agentic world, this system needed refreshing. Following board-level discussions, they have trained up 27,000 people in advanced AI knowledge and connected their innovation squads to share learning. Additionally, Rabobank is looking to the future. Recruitment processes and selection criteria have been revamped to consider how incoming talent will be able to navigate what is to come in 5, 10 or even 20 years' time.
Dare to experiment: As one of the world’s largest fashion companies, H&M’s purpose is to liberate fashion for the many, and their AI strategy has to reflect this. Jan Ziskasen, Global CTO, H&M, explained how an evolved innovation framework is allowing them to reimagine customer experiences both in-store and digitally. He said that central to this is daring to experiment. With 70% of the company’s code now being written by agents, and with 95% of reviews being agent-driven, they are able to test, explore and scale ideas faster than ever. By embedding the technology across the business in daily workflows is building trust and facilitating an AI-driven future for their colleagues and customers.
Abhinav Kumar, Global Chief Marketing Officer at TCS, and Ian James, Team Principal and Managing Director, JLR Motorsport, took to the stage for a special announcement.
Alongside Nigel Blenkinsop, Chief Operating Officer of JLR, and TCS' K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, and Aarthi Subramanian, COO, they revealed the renewal of the partnership between TCS and Jaguar Racing for the 2027 season.
After winning the 2026 ABB FIA Formula E Teams’ World Championship – the second time in three years – together they discussed what it takes to achieve success in the most competitive form of motorsport.
Teamwork and partnership have been foundational in unlocking performance at all levels of the team and in tackling challenges head-on.
The relationship goes beyond the racetrack. Blenkinsop recalled how TCS and JLR worked closely together to overcome a major cyber incident last year, embodying a partnership that has stood the test of time.
In our first panel session of the day, executive leaders from a broad range of industries discussed the steps boards must take to govern, embed, and manage the risks of AI in a way that ensures investments and deployments translate into value. Here are five key ways they are turning vision into action within their businesses.
K. Krithivasan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS, opened day two of the Summit by exploring what it takes to turn AI into enterprise advantage.
“The uncertainties keep intensifying,” he said. “They don't seem to be reducing. But even with that, our conviction remains. We believe this is a civilisational shift. This technology is going to transform every aspect of human life.”
Central to his discussion was one key question: Are we solving the problems worth solving?
He said that leaders must keep this in mind when navigating AI deployment challenges – such as sharing knowledge with agents while protecting points of differentiation or increasing AI autonomy while retaining control – in order to unlock the technology’s true value.
During the session, Krithi provided key examples where problems worth solving were identified and overcome. These included the deployment of TCS’ digital twin technology for an automotive original equipment manufacturer. This allowed the business to predict when customers were likely to next need their services and target them at the right time, resulting in significant uplift in revenue, and customer footfall. Examples like this show what is possible when AI technology is deployed effectively.
He closed by reflecting on the achievements of Kenyan athlete Sabastian Sawe, who broke the two-hour barrier earlier this year at the TCS London Marathon. Krithi shared how this feat was inspiring TCS colleagues to break new boundaries for customers and help them reach new heights of their own.
Welcome to day two of the TCS Summit Europe 2026 in Malta, where the conversation moves from exploring AI’s possibilities to a series of sessions on how to turn AI ambition into action.
K. Krithivasan, CEO and Managing Director of TCS, will give an address on Leadership in Enterprise AI, setting the tone for a day focused on how organisations can move beyond experimentation and embed intelligence into the way they operate.
That theme continues in a board-level discussion bringing together leaders from DNB Bank, UWV, Jaguar Land Rover, Nest Corporation and TCS. The panel will explore how AI is changing the role of leadership and what it takes to ensure AI creates lasting business value.
Later, executives from British Airways, Legal & General, Rabobank, and H&M will share how their organisations are stepping up their AI game. The discussion will focus on moving beyond isolated use cases and building the partnerships, platforms, and capabilities needed to scale AI.
The conversation then broadens out to consider Europe’s role in the global AI landscape. A fireside chat with Marietje Schaake, a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, who will explore the balance between security, simplification, and sovereignty. That will be followed by a panel examining how Europe can build greater technology sovereignty across AI, cloud, semiconductors, and critical infrastructure.
Day two is about turning AI potential into action and understanding what it takes to build an intelligent and secure digital future. Follow along for live updates and key takeaways from Malta, or to see the agenda and speakers, click here.
On the final day at the Summit, it was clear that the AI opportunity is about redesigning how organisations operate, create value and work, and also about making sure AI is combined with human strengths.
Here are the key takeaways from day three:
Reflecting on the few days, Sapthagiri Chapalapalli, Head of Europe, TCS and Vinay Singhvi, Head of UK and Ireland, TCS, highlighted some of the themes to emerge from the Summit, including rethinking value chains and scaling enterprise AI.
For Vinay, one of the strongest messages was that AI is about more than improving existing processes. He pointed to the need for organisations to rethink the entire value chain, taking an end-to-end view of where AI can create value for all stakeholders.
He also reflected on one of the Summit’s recurring themes: the relationship between humans and AI. Rather than viewing the two as competing forces, he highlighted how they can work together to make each other better.
For Saptha, the focus was on moving from ambition to execution. The next step, he said, is applying a systemic approach to the individual context of each organisation. Customers have shared their own AI journeys throughout the Summit, helping to enrich what Saptha described as an execution roadmap for transforming enterprises and creating value.
Saptha reaffirmed TCS’ commitment to being a long-term partner to customers as they navigate their AI transformation, supporting them throughout the journey.
As the Summit closes, that leaves us with the biggest takeaway of all: Enterprise AI is transforming how organisations operate, create value and prepare for what comes next. Success requires combining technology with data, infrastructure, human expertise and leadership.
Delegates can take the ideas, connections, and lessons from these three days and turn them into action.
Navigating change was the central theme of a discussion with Gary Neville, Entrepreneur, Sky Sports Pundit and Former Manchester United Captain and England International, along with Michael Dawson, Sky Sports Pundit, Former Tottenham Hotspur Captain and England International.
Leaders have always had to adapt to technology, and AI isn’t fundamentally different from previous waves of technological change, Gary said. He described how Manchester United evolved during his career - he joined in 1992 - and by the time he left, there were sports scientists, nutritionists, strength and conditioning coaches, media teams, specialist coaches, GPS tracking, video analysis, and more.
When things are changing, it is important to be able to adapt, be open-minded and retain and upskill people, he said. While it is impossible now to be in business or run a football team without understanding evidence and data, human judgement still matters. There’s a need to explore where AI can be transformational rather than waiting for someone else to figure it out.
Michael Dawson said advancements in AI and technology are inevitable, so we all need to learn how to use them. He also said that while technology can improve performance, individuals still have to perform. AI can provide tools and information, but individual accountability doesn't disappear.
He talked about how TCS and Tottenham Hotspur’s AI partnership can harness technology to improve the fan experience and broaden the experience of going to a football match. Tottenham Hotspur’s multi-year partnership with TCS will accelerate its digital transformation through AI, data, cybersecurity, and advanced analytics.
Both speakers emphasised the importance of human qualities including the ability to adapt, resilience, specifically dealing with mistakes and setbacks, work ethic, and accountability.
AI should be connected to business outcomes and need to have appropriate leadership, accountability, workforce considerations, and guardrails around its use. That was the key takeaway from a panel on redefining collaboration.
Peter Cabello Holmberg, CIO, SAS said that AI transformation needs executive ownership, clear priorities, and careful workforce management. He sees AI as a change-management exercise, anchored at CEO/C-level, and he also said organisations need to think more seriously about what happens to the workforce as AI agents take on tasks.
He described SAS’s strategy of focusing on a small number of “AI big bets” that can make a significant difference and gave software development as an example. On AI culture, he described an “AI-first” mindset in which organisations continually ask whether AI can help achieve a business objective.
Malin Persson, CIO and Head of Enterprise IT, Ericsson said that AI is moving so quickly that leaders need to rethink assumptions, develop an ethical framework, and learn to lead through uncertainty.
She was struck by the speed and potential of AI, and said organisations need to challenge assumptions that have traditionally been taken for granted. For her, leadership is particularly important in helping define what it means to remain human in an AI-enabled organisation. Rather than adopting AI because everyone else is doing it, organisations should identify genuine business problems, she said.
Niels Roberts, CIO, EDF UK, said AI implementation needs to be viewed as a business transformation. He wants EDF to adopt AI in a measured way, without either blindly rushing ahead or ignoring it, and he said AI agents should be treated as part of the workforce and actively managed.
A major theme for him is accountability. AI projects need someone responsible for turning them into actual business value. He focused on business value, accountability, risk management, and building AI safely into the organisation.
Executives should focus on using AI to create real business value rather than running pilots, all three speakers said. It’s about identifying the areas where AI can have the greatest impact, setting ambitious goals, and treating AI as part of wider business transformation.
Success will depend on strong leadership, effective change management, the right operating model, and clear business sponsorship to ensure AI initiatives deliver measurable results.
Georges-Olivier Reymond, the Co-Founder of quantum computing company Pasqal, told delegates that quantum computing has moved beyond being experimental and is becoming a practical technology for businesses.
Quantum computing is already usable in certain applications, can work alongside AI and classical computing and doesn’t need huge investments, he says.
The big shift in enterprise AI is no longer about asking “how do I use AI?” but “what is the AI play in everything I do in the enterprise?”
That was one of the central messages from TCS COO Aarthi Subramanian this morning in a fireside chat that opened the third and final day of the Summit.
The opportunity is not simply to automate existing processes, it is to redesign them, she argued, combining humans, AI, and agents to deliver outcomes that weren't previously possible.
She also outlined several examples that demonstrate how this can work in practice. An S/4HANA implementation has been reduced from 36 months to around 26 months, the enterprise transformation is turbocharged with AI, she said. In recruitment, agentic AI enabled TCS to reach 200,000 candidates in a week, with an 85% improvement in the time from outreach to scheduling and selection.
The differentiator won’t just be which AI model an enterprise uses, she said, leveraging context, creating differentiation and delivering value are key issues. That means understanding the enterprise’s own processes, data and knowledge, and building the operating model, governance and skills needed to turn AI into something that works at scale.
Her message was clear: the AI opportunity is becoming less about experimenting with the technology and more about redesigning the enterprise around what the technology makes possible.
Five takeaways from Aarthi Subramanian’s fireside address:
Day three turns the focus to what comes next: How organisations will operate, compete, and make decisions as AI progresses. Aarthi Subramanian, Executive Director, President, and Chief Operating Officer, TCS, opens the day with a fireside chat considering what it means to become AI-native, before the programme turns to a fireside chat with Georges-Olivier Reymond, Co-Founder of Pasqal, who will talk about the potential of quantum computing and Artificial General Intelligence.
The morning then shifts to the future of work, exploring how human teams and AI agents can collaborate, and what organisations need to rethink around decision-making, accountability, and operating models. The programme brings together technology leaders from Ericsson, SAS, and EDF UK to examine what comes next as AI moves from experimentation into core operations.
The day also looks beyond technology to the broader challenge of reinvention. Former Manchester United and England captain Gary Neville will join Michael Dawson to explore what it takes to build a new career and identity when the rules of the game change, a theme that resonates strongly with businesses navigating AI-driven disruption.
The Summit closes with remarks from Sapthagiri Chapalapalli, Head of Europe, TCS, and Vinay Singhvi, Head of UK and Ireland, TCS, before delegates come together for the closing lunch.
Follow our live blog throughout day three for key insights, standout quotes and the moments shaping the conversation around AI, leadership, and Europe’s digital future. You can see the agenda and speakers for the final day here.