Expert Events

The Open Agentic Control Plane: Orchestrating AI Across Any Environment

Name: The Open Agentic Control Plane: Orchestrating AI Across Any Environment
Start: 2026-09-09T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-09-09T21:00:00-05:00
Location: Eddie Merlot’s

Join Blend, IBM and Confluent for an executive dinner exploring how organizations can build an open agentic enterprise, coordinating AI across complex environments while balancing openness, governance, flexibility and trust.

Eddie Merlot’s

September 9, 2026

to September 9, 2026

6:00 pm

- 9:00 pm

About this event

Organizations have moved beyond asking whether to adopt AI. The new challenge is managing what happens after adoption. As AI agents proliferate across teams, applications, cloud environments, and business functions, leaders are confronting a new operational reality: more intelligence often creates more complexity.

AI is rapidly becoming embedded across the enterprise, yet many organizations are discovering that success is no longer determined by the number of AI initiatives they launch. Instead, it depends on their ability to coordinate, govern, and optimize AI across increasingly fragmented environments. Without a unified approach, organizations risk creating disconnected AI ecosystems that limit visibility, increase operational complexity, and make governance more difficult as adoption accelerates.

Join Blend, IBM, and Confluent for an executive dinner exploring what it means to lead an open agentic enterprise. Through an interactive fireside conversation and peer-led discussion, we’ll examine how organizations are moving beyond isolated AI experiments to create scalable operating models that balance openness with governance, flexibility with control, and innovation with enterprise-wide trust.

Our speakers

Colin Cosell

Head of New York & Boston Community | Blend

Colin Cosell is a professional emcee, announcer, and executive communications expert with more than 25 years of experience across television, radio, film, stage, and corporate events. When he’s not at the lectern or moderating executive panels, Colin serves as the Public Address Announcer for the New York Mets, Army Football, the Premier Lacrosse League, and numerous other professional and collegiate teams. Over the course of his career, Colin has earned three Emmy Awards and has announced to more than 30 million attendees worldwide. His greatest source of pride, however, are his wife, Julia, and their little girl, Eloise.

Key themes & discussion topics

From AI Adoption to AI Coordination
How enterprises can move beyond isolated AI initiatives to coordinate growing ecosystems of AI agents across teams, applications, cloud environments and business functions.

Balancing Openness with Governance
How leaders can maintain interoperability and flexibility while introducing the visibility, consistency and governance needed to scale AI confidently.

Building Trust in Autonomous AI
The capabilities, controls and leadership approaches required to build confidence as AI agents take on greater operational responsibility and participate in business decision-making.

Defining the Open Agentic Enterprise
The organizational and architectural changes needed to prevent fragmentation and build an open, scalable and trusted operating model for the agentic future.

Event agenda

Cocktails & networking

6:00 – 6:30 PM

Opening remarks & panel discussion

6:30 – 7:15 PM

Dinner & guided discussion

7:15 – 8:45 PM

Event wrap-up & group reflection

8:45 – 9:00 PM

Why should you attend?

Learn how to scale AI without creating greater complexity, as adoption expands across teams, platforms and cloud environments.

Explore practical approaches to balancing innovation with enterprise control, maintaining openness and interoperability without compromising governance.

Exchange perspectives with senior technology and transformation leaders facing similar challenges around enterprise AI, data, cloud architecture and integration.

Help shape your organization’s agentic AI strategy by identifying the decisions and capabilities leaders should prioritise today to prepare for increasingly autonomous AI systems.

Who should attend

This session is designed for senior technology and transformation leaders responsible for enterprise AI, data strategy, cloud architecture, integration, governance, and digital transformation. The discussion will be particularly valuable for leaders responsible for scaling AI across complex enterprise environments while balancing innovation, governance, and operational resilience.

Venue

Eddie Merlot’s

505 Congress St.
Boston
MA
MA 02210
United States

Apply to participate