Deploying AI: If You're Not Terrified, You're Focusing on the Wrong Problem

In most organisations, AI is still theatre; demos that impress, systems that decay, and dashboards that measure nothing that matters.

In trading, that luxury doesn’t exist. Every model sits one bad decision away from losing real money. That pressure breeds discipline, the kind most AI programs haven’t developed.

Hamish Songsmith, Head of Applied AI for APAC at Optiver, will give a rare look into how high-stakes environments approach AI differently: how they pick the right problems, evaluate them with surgical precision, and move from prototypes to production systems that survive contact with reality.

This is a candid session on discipline, choices, and talent what it actually takes to run an AI program that delivers measurable impact.

Come ready to talk architectures, evals, risk, and results.