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 within the workplace.
AI is transforming how organisations operate, collaborate and make decisions—but technology alone is not redefining work. As intelligent systems become embedded across the enterprise, organisations must rethink workflows, leadership, workplace strategy and the relationship between people and technology. This opening theme explores how leading organisations are harnessing AI to enhance human capability, drive productivity and create meaningful business value.
Kick off the day by examining the forces driving change in workplaces today. This dynamic discussion will set the scene, surface key challenges, and explore emerging trends and strategic insights, offering a shared perspective on the future of work and the opportunities that lie ahead.
The 2026 Work Trend Index shows work being redesigned around AI agents — and Switzerland is already ahead, with Swiss professionals leading the world in AI-driven productivity. This session translates the findings into what they mean on the ground: the rise of the Frontier Firm, where human-agent teams and intelligence-on-demand reshape how work gets done. We'll look at the implications for companies (redesigning workflows, closing the capacity gap) and for employees (becoming "agent bosses" and doubling down on essential human skills) — and how Microsoft's Frontier Firm story turns these trends into a practical roadmap for Swiss competitiveness.
While the potential of agentic AI is clear, turning strategy into reality requires organisations to rethink work, skills and operating models. This session combines new research on AI's impact on the workforce with practical client examples, exploring which activities are most likely to be automated, how organisations are redesigning work around AI agents, and the role HR plays in enabling successful transformation.
As AI, workplace technology, and physical space increasingly converge, organisations have more data than ever about how workplaces function. The challenge is transforming that data into meaningful insight and confident action. This theme explores how leading organisations are integrating workplace intelligence to optimise portfolios, enhance employee experience, measure workplace value and create more connected, responsive and high-performing workplace ecosystems where people, technology and the built environment work together.
Workplace leaders have more data than ever, but the true value emerges when it is integrated and scaled across diverse global portfolios. At the same time, organisations are operating in environments where signals are often fragmented, conditions are constantly shifting, and decisions increasingly need to be made faster and with less certainty than traditional models allow. This session explores how practitioners are translating workplace and real estate strategy into day-to-day decision-making across complex organisations. Panellists will discuss how they interpret behavioural, operational, and portfolio signals in practice, and how they prioritise action when information is incomplete, timelines are compressed, and competing demands must be balanced. The focus is on how workplace intelligence is actually being used to support responsiveness, alignment, and confident decision-making across different organisational contexts.
This session explores how Bühler transformed its 160-year-old industrial site from a traditional manufacturing campus into a vibrant innovation hub for the future of work. Starting with a deep understanding of how people actually use spaces, the project reimagined the site as a small city, enriching it with learning, research, health, dining, innovation, and social destinations. The transformation has strengthened employee experience, collaboration, innovation, and employer attractiveness while staying true to the values and culture of a global family-owned company.
This panel explores the cutting-edge technologies shaping the modern workplace—tools that enhance collaboration, elevate the employee experience, and boost productivity. Industry leaders will share how integrated AV solutions, digital collaboration platforms, and workplace analytics are transforming physical and virtual spaces into seamless, engaging environments that empower employees to perform at their best. Attendees will gain practical insights on leveraging these innovations to build more connected, agile, and high-performing teams while delivering an exceptional workplace experience.
As work continues to evolve, organisations must do more than adapt their workplaces—they must rethink how people, place and technology work together to support human performance, organisational resilience and long-term success. This theme explores how leading organisations are designing more adaptive enterprises by embracing new ways of working, enabling better decisions and redefining how workplace value is created, measured and sustained.
For decades, workplace decisions have been driven by cost. Today, organisations are being asked to create outcomes beyond financial performance.As organisations navigate AI, accelerating sustainability commitments and evolving business and reporting expectations, financial performance remains fundamental. But organisations are increasingly expected to understand, measure and communicate broader organisational impact.
In this interactive session, delegates will work collaboratively to challenge conventional thinking, exchange perspectives and explore the evolving definition of workplace success. Join us to rethink how organisations create, measure and communicate success as workplace leaders enter a new era where performance is increasingly being evaluated, and reported through a broader lens.
Agentic AI is not eliminating work — it is changing and further compressing it. As AI absorbs execution, what remains for humans is structurally different: overseeing more tasks, higher stakes, faster cadence. Meanwhile, the average knowledge worker’s attention span has collapsed from 2.5 minutes to 47 seconds, and is still falling. Research shows that the more we trust AI, the less we engage our thinking. Tech psychologist Sylvain Rottier — who led one of the world’s first large-scale robotics deployments — names the change-management challenge most organisations are starting to observe, and shows what cognitive readiness looks like and how to build it.
The convergence of AI, emerging technologies, and physical and digital environments is creating unprecedented opportunities to reimagine how organisations operate, collaborate and create value. But technology alone is not enough. Success will depend on leaders who can build adaptable organisations, develop new skills, foster human-centred cultures and harness innovation to navigate continuous change. This theme explores how organisations are preparing for the future through new approaches to leadership, workforce capability and the intelligent integration of people, place and technology.
The day's conversations don't end here—they come together. Following the interactive workshop, facilitators Key and Susannah return to reveal the key themes, ideas and recommendations generated by delegates during the breakout discussions. Drawing together the collective intelligence of the room, they'll explore where participants found consensus, where opinions diverged and what these conversations reveal about the changing definition of workplace value.
But there is one more voice to hear. Working quietly in the background throughout the conference, Microsoft's AI agent has listened to every session, identifying recurring themes, connecting ideas across sessions and surfacing insights that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. Now, AI enters the room as an active participant, joining the facilitators to compare perspectives, challenge assumptions and test the breakout findings against the wider conversations from across the day. Part reveal, part reflection and part live conversation, this closing session blends collective human intelligence with AI-powered synthesis to uncover the day's biggest ideas—and explore what they mean for the future of work.
