From Caution to Confidence: Adopting AI Safely in Energy & Utilities - GDS Group

From Caution to Confidence: Adopting AI Safely in Energy & Utilities

ROUNDTABLE
28 January 2026 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm EST
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Cohere

How to adopt AI safely and responsibly.

Energy and utilities organizations know AI has the potential to transform operations and unlock value, yet adoption often feels risky. Highly regulated environments, complex legacy systems, and sensitive operational data can slow progress and raise concerns around security and governance. For many leaders, the challenge isn’t whether to adopt AI, but how to do so responsibly and safely.

Leading organizations are finding practical paths forward by focusing on secure AI platforms and clear use cases tied to operational impact. AI is increasingly being applied not just to innovation initiatives, but to day-to-day workflows which improves decision-making and productivity.

This roundtable brings together energy and utilities leaders and thought leaders from Cohere to share real-world perspectives on adopting AI with confidence. Participants will explore how organizations are balancing build vs. buy decisions, securing sensitive data, scaling AI responsibly, and identifying where AI can deliver the greatest competitive advantage.

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Event host

Sam Barnett

Sam Barnett

GTM Lead, Energy and Utilities
Sam Barnett is an enterprise sales GTM leader at Cohere, the security-first enterprise AI company. Sam's team find out more
Cohere

About Cohere

Cohere is the leading security-first enterprise AI company. We build cutting-edge foundation models and end-to-end AI products designed to solve real-world business problems. We partner closely with companies to deliver seamless integration, full customization, and easy-to-use solutions for their workforce and customers. Our all-in-one platform offers enterprises the highest levels of security, data privacy and optionality to deploy across all major cloud providers, private cloud environments, or on- premises.

Find out more

Discussion topics

Build vs. buy decisions for AI platforms and where internal teams should focus

Identifying where AI can deliver the greatest competitive advantage

Securing operational data and private customer information

Why Attend

Closed door, tailored conversations to benchmark, share and get better equipped to solve complex transformation projects.

Experience shared learning

Meet industry leading like-minded executives tackling similar initiatives.

Benchmark with your industry peers

Discover and network to gain expertise and experience on how to best act and succeed.

Accelerate your projects

Accelerate in-depth face time with the world’s leading tech companies pushing the boundaries to solve your challenges.

"Very engaging on the right topics and with the right people, I very much look forward to (attending more) in the future"
Alex Boehme, CTO, H&M Group
"Since the session I did have several of the attendees reach out to me. We were able to grow our networks, connect together, share experiences, and I look forward to continuing those dialogs into the future"
Jeffrey Johnson, Vice President, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Security Officer, Siemens Health Affairs for North America
"A great mixture of good topics, great technology, very engaging and having some leading experts in the field being there"
Dr Brian Letort, Fellow & Chief Enterprise Architect, Northrop Grumman
"It's not a business of selling, it's a business of sharing. And so GDS helps create the environment to share with trust."
David Kidder, CEO & Co-Founder, Bionic
"The roundtables were really valuable sessions."
Mike Welna, Senior Information Security Director, Boys Town
"I made quite a few contacts that will be beneficial to me."
Margaret Bond, Director of Cyber Security, Numotion
"This is not your typical zoom. This is a lot more innovative. The look and feel is far more advanced than what I've seen before. "
Marty Sprinzen, Founder & CEO, Vantiq

Digital event benefits

Solve key challenges and ensure relevant discussions connect with outcomes efficiently and at pace.

Meet

Access to industry leading like-minded executives tackling similar initiatives

Discover

Collaborate and network to gain expertise and experience on how to best act and succeed

Accelerate

In-depth face time with the world’s leading tech companies pushing the boundaries to solve your challenges

Apply to attend

Meet with fellow industry leaders and solve today’s greatest business challenges.

Thank you for your interest. One of the team will be in touch soon.

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