The full-day AI HotSpot Conference: Innovate, Implement, Inspire delivered inspiring talks, showcases of advanced AI projects, panel discussions with top executives on AI readiness, and an academic talent competition.
The conference took place on November 14, 2024, and offered practical workshops and real-world examples of AI applications in business, such as BE-A’s AI concierge. Participants also had the opportunity to connect with experts, innovators, and academics from universities and witness firsthand how AI is transforming business.
Program
Registration, Networking & Coffee Break
Conference Opening
Keynote: Succeeding with AI
The Future of AI: Why Data Matters More Than Ever
(Gen) AI is taking enterprises by storm. However, despite all the hype and investments, the adoption of AI is not as we might expect. In his presentation, Tomas Kratky explored the current state of production-ready AI applications, the essential role data plays in the future of AI, the key challenges enterprises face, and some best practices each company should consider.
The Future of Hospitality: Artificial Intelligence in Human Form
The perfect hotel employee exists. Attendees discovered what the future of hospitality held and whether Czechs could lead a global revolution.
Panel Discussion – AI Readiness: Paving the Way for Business Transformation
The key strategies for successful AI implementation with industry leaders in digital transformation. This panel revealed how to build AI-friendly environments, reshape processes, and prepare teams for an AI-driven future. Expert experiences and first-hand business stories provided attendees with insights to help guide their businesses into the AI era.
Lunch break
The Ups and Downs of Implementing AI in Banking
The presentation provided practical insight into the deployment of AI at the bank. Using concrete examples, Martin Münch showed the use of both classical and generative AI, as well as how ČSOB organises AI use cases across the Group, and how they deal with regulation.
Implementing AI in a Mid-Sized Private Bank: From Revenue to Cost Reduction & DORA Regulation
This presentation showcased the use of artificial intelligence at the private German bank, Berenberg. Philipp Söchtig explained how implementing different AI use cases affects costs and revenues and how AI can help implement parts of the DORA regulation efficiently.
AI Transformation: Bridging IT and Business for Organizational Success
Tereza explored the essential elements of leading an AI transformation, focusing on how to bridge the gap between IT and business, identify valuable AI use cases, and make AI accessible to all employees. She also addressed strategies for driving organizational change and fostering a digital mindset across the company.
A New Era of Client Interaction with the Bank
Karel introduced the AI digital advisor “Hey George” as a two-way communication channel enabled by an open and extensible platform architecture, orchestrating an ecosystem of different chatbots driven by an agent-based approach for handling the user conversation with a large language model.
Talents for AI: Bridging Academia and Industry (panel discussion)
This panel explored how to tap into young talent—students, researchers, and early-career professionals—to drive AI innovation. Panelists discussed connecting academia and business, launching AI labs, and incubating ideas in corporate environments. Participants learned how to foster talent growth, accelerate AI roadmaps, and steer collaboration between corporations, universities, and external experts. They gained insights from various perspectives on harnessing talent to fuel the future of AI.
AI Talents Competition
Finalists of the competition were:
- Jakub Dorian Charbulak – Towards an Integrated Legal Environment with CaseIndex
- Václav Stibor – Financial News Sentiment Analysis
- Jiří Macháček – Use of LLMs for Storytelling Games
- Teodor Beneš – Video Analytics for Prague Airport
- Petr Hollan, Kristián Melleš, Samuel Čandík – Online Meetings Optimization
The Audience Award was won by Teodor Beneš with his video analytics project for Václav Havel Airport. The Jury Award was presented to Jiří Macháček for his project on the use of language models in narrative games.
Conference closing
Workshops
Copilots for Software Development
In this workshop, Michal showed various scenarios where GitHub Copilot simplifies the work of software engineers. Practical examples were presented of how Copilot can be used in real projects and how it can accelerate the resolution of everyday development tasks. Participants saw how an experienced software developer could effectively collaborate with this virtual colleague and how Copilot contributes to productivity and innovation in software development.
Evaluating AI solutions: Validate the Reliability of Your Models
The deployment of AI models in practice often faces challenges regarding reliability and output quality assurance. In this workshop, participants learned how to test and validate AI models to minimize the risk of errors and ensure the desired quality. We showed participants how to apply AI testing methodologies using the EvalMy.AI tool on specific practical examples, enabling to create reliable and functional AI solutions.
Side Program
Six-legged robot Daisy in action!
Rudolf Szadkowski from the Computational Robotics Laboratory, which is part of the AI Center FEL ČVUT, introduced Daisy. Participants came and saw how this unique robot was able to move and map the terrain.
