Digital Excellence Summit

 

 

Tomorrow's leaders achieve Digital Excellence.

What is your Destination Next?


19 November 2026 - Leuven, BE

An exclusive gathering of 50+ business and technology leaders to explore what’s next in digital & AI, challenge perspectives with peers and experts, and build valuable connections in a premium setting.

To guide organisations on this journey, AE launched its second Digital Excellence Report, highlighting five evolutions that will define digital success in the years ahead.

The Digital Excellence Summit builds directly on that foundation, offering an exclusive opportunity to dive deeper into these evolutions with industry experts and C-level peers and to turn insights into concrete strategies and impactful decisions.


What can you expect?

Perspectives

Challenge your perspective

Gain fresh perspectives from AE experts and business leaders on the digital and AI evolutions shaping tomorrow’s organisations, and what they could mean for yours.

Conversation

Exchange with your peers

Join an interactive roundtable with fellow decision-makers to challenge ideas, compare approaches and explore a key topic in greater depth.

Customer cases

Learn from real-world cases

Discover concrete use cases and customer stories that turn digital and AI ambitions into tangible business impact, and inspire opportunities for your own organisation.

Fine dining

Connect over fine dining

Continue the conversation with C-level peers and AE leadership during an fine-dining experience designed for meaningful connections.


AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
Digital Excellence Summit
AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
AI Hype vs Hyperautomation

Event program

15:00

Welcome

Meet our experts and your peers

15:30

Interactive roundtables

Dive into a key digital or AI topic and challenge perspectives with peers and AE experts.

17:30

Keynote by Christoph Neut, CEO AE

Christoph Neut will reflect on how Digital Excellence shapes the future of business and leadership.

18:00

Networking & fine dining

20:00

End - Drive home safely


Roundtable options

AI is changing more than how organisations work. It challenges where you create value, how you compete and how your organisation needs to operate.

In this interactive session, we explore how AI could reshape strategic choices and operating models across different industries. Expect provocative examples, fresh perspectives and an open discussion about what AI could fundamentally change in your organisation.

Roundtable 1

AI changes the game

Rethinking your business strategy & operating models

AI is changing more than how organisations work. It challenges where you create value, how you compete and how your organisation needs to operate.

In this interactive session, we explore how AI could reshape strategic choices and operating models across different industries. Expect provocative examples, fresh perspectives and an open discussion about what AI could fundamentally change in your organisation.

This session is recommended for business and technology leaders exploring how AI could fundamentally reshape their organisation, including CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, COOs and digital leaders.

Roundtable 2

Learn from AE’s Digital AI twin

From generic AI to AI that understands your business

AI knows a lot about the world. But how much does it really know about your organisation?

Critical context is often scattered across wikis, documents, meeting notes and people's heads. In this session, we share what we learned from building AE's own collective memory and explore why trusted organisational context could be the missing foundation for AI that truly understands your business.

This session is recommended for CIOs, CDOs, CTOs and Data & AI leaders looking to move beyond generic AI and make organisational knowledge and context work for AI.

Roundtable 3

Legacy modernisation

Modernise what holds you back. Protect what matters

Legacy applications and systems are costly to change, hard to maintain and an increasing source of risk. Yet a multi-year, big-bang rebuild rarely feels like a realistic option. In this session, we'll walk you through our approach to getting there, from an unclear legacy landscape to a concrete way forward.

Join us to discuss what a lower-risk modernisation path could look like for your organisation.

This session is recommended for CIOs, CTOs, IT and application leaders dealing with legacy systems that limit agility, increase risk or become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Roundtable 4

Digital Product success

How fast can you turn a perfectly good product idea into a complete disaster?

You start with a great digital product idea. Then reality takes over. More people get involved, priorities shift and everyone makes it better (at least from their point of view).

In this interactive experiment, discover how good intentions can turn a great product idea into something nobody intended. Let's see if it survives and how to spot the warning signs early to keep your digital product on track.

Session provided by QuietLoud, AE's digital product & marketing team.

This session is recommended for CMOs, marketing, digital and product leaders looking to turn great ideas into successful digital products without losing their original value along the way.


A premium networking & fine dining experience

The Summit concludes in style with an exclusive networking dinner. Over refined dishes, fine drinks and live music, conversations continue in a more relaxed atmosphere, creating the perfect opportunity to strengthen connections and spark new collaborations.

AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
AI Hype vs Hyperautomation
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Practical details

Cost: free of charge

Date
Thursday, 19 November 2026
Start: 15:00
End: 20:00

Location
AE Leuven office
Interleuvenlaan 76
BE - 3001 Heverlee
> Directions

Parking: Free parking available at the venue

Register for the Digital Excellence Summit