This event brings thought leaders together to share cutting edge ideas on the future, from both a people and technology perspective.
It will allow an understanding of the key drivers of change and enablers of innovation that will shape how, where and when work takes place. Our conference programme will explore future technologies, cutting edge award-winning workplaces and people, change and engagement.
Corporate purpose is no longer aspirational — it is operational. Organisations are under increasing pressure to align workplace strategy with ESG commitments, regulation, and investor expectations while still delivering performance. This theme explores how leaders are making hard decisions about space, energy, and experience as real estate strategies for the long term.
Organisations are at an inflection point — facing unprecedented change, AI acceleration, talent pressure and hybrid complexity. In this sharp opening session, Hardy shares global examples of institutions redefining how work drives performance. Featuring insights from landmark headquarters including Macquarie Group in Sydney and JPMorgan Chase in New York, he explores what these buildings signal about leadership, culture and competitive advantage.
From AI-enabled environments to data-led design, this session cuts through hype to reveal what’s working, what’s failing and what’s scaling in the next-generation workplace.
Expect global comparisons, unfiltered insight, and clear signals on what the next-generation workplace will demand from leaders.
The workplace is becoming critical digital infrastructure. Hybrid work, automation, and AI are reshaping how organisations operate, coordinate, and perform — but not without friction. This theme examines how workplace platforms and technologies are being used to improve efficiency and decision-making while addressing governance, privacy, and trust.
This session explores how continuous user feedback is reshaping the way organisations design, operate, and evolve their workplaces. Drawing on her research and her work as founder of spatio.AI, Victoria Davalos explains why traditional post-occupancy evaluations often struggle to influence design decisions, and how continuous feedback makes spatial quality and use measurable, actionable, and comparable over time. Together with Heike Sander, project lead at Crespel & Deiters, the session bridges theory and practice. Heike shares what it means to implement continuous feedback in a real organisational context: what changed, what surprised them, and how occupant insight began to inform decisions and long-term workplace strategy. The result is a human-centred alternative to sensor-only workplace intelligence: grounded, actionable, and scalable.
AI is no longer a system employees log into - it’s becoming an active teammate. In workplace and facility operations, agentic AI is moving beyond dashboards to take action, coordinate workflows, and intervene only when human judgment is needed. This session explores what it truly means to treat AI agents as new joiners from day one. Drawing on real enterprise deployments, Elisa will examine how proactive AI is reshaping employee experience, operational resilience, and building performance - and what leaders must redesign now to stay ahead of autonomous operations.
Hybrid work is here to stay, yet people still struggle with meeting rooms every day. Every room looks and works differently. Over-engineered setups lead to poor audio, confusing touch panels, and frustrated employees calling IT for help—undermining collaboration and productivity.
This session cuts through the theory to focus on what actually works in practice—and why building bespoke rooms is no longer the answer. We’ll explore how to close the gap between hybrid ambition and day-to-day reality.
Expect a grounded conversation on the real barriers organisations face, along with practical, real-world examples of how to eliminate the chaos and deliver a meeting experience that just works—everywhere.
From Sedus.
Hybrid work has fundamentally changed how opportunity, visibility, and value are distributed at work. In a competitive labour market, workplace strategy is now central to talent sustainability. We explore how organisations are redefining the employee value proposition — balancing flexibility with fairness, inclusion with performance, and autonomy with accountability.
Bayer's new Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO) approach represents a significant global shift in the companý´s operating model, designed to replace traditional hierarchies towards more streamlined, responsive and more customer focused outcomes. By enabling teams to make decisions autonomously and working within 90-day cycles, the DSO model aims to cut down on bureaucracy, foster innovation, and enhance financial outcomes. Implementing DSO in the Real Estate department resulted in more agile structures, faster decision making, more team empowerment and better execution.
As financial institutions rethink how and where work happens, Berlin is emerging as a testbed for progressive workplace transformation. In this session, we explore how two major banks are reimagining their environments—from innovation-driven HQ strategies to the development of campuses. Combining real project insight with on-the-ground perspectives, the discussion will unpack what’s driving change, what’s working in practice, and how workplace design is supporting culture, talent, and future-ready banking.
Static office portfolios no longer reflect how organisations operate. Market volatility, hybrid work, and decarbonisation targets are forcing leaders to rethink the scale, structure, and purpose of real estate portfolios. This theme focuses on strategic decisions around consolidation, flexibility, and transformation — balancing cost, culture, and carbon.
Drawing on insights from the State of the Workplace 2026 survey, this session explores a critical shift in workplace strategy. While hybrid working patterns have largely settled, employee engagement is declining and frustration with everyday workplace friction remains high. The data exposes a widening “performance gap” between the intent behind workplace investment and the experience employees actually have. This talk reframes the workplace not as background infrastructure, but as a strategic performance lever—and challenges leaders to rethink how space, services and technology either enable human performance or actively undermine it.
As the day concludes, join us to reflect on key themes, insights, and takeaways from the conference. This interactive session will distil key learnings, spark discussion, and explore how the ideas presented can drive future action. Share your thoughts, gain fresh perspectives, and leave inspired to turn insights into impact.
