Manchester tech event to focus on AI, trust & risk

DTX + UCX Manchester will return to Manchester Central for a two-day business transformation event as the flagship of Manchester Tech Week.

The programme centres on the theme, "From Purpose to Practise: Igniting Curiosity, Building Trust, Confronting Risk", with a focus on artificial intelligence, cyber resilience and customer experience. It is structured around the operational and technology challenges facing large organisations, with sessions on technology adoption, risk management and organisational change.

A particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between people, process and technology. That framing reflects a broader trend in the UK technology sector, as companies weigh investment in AI and automation against regulatory pressure, cyber threats, and the need to maintain trust with customers and staff.

A major opening-day keynote will bring together Howard Marshall, former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division, and Kelly Bissell, former Corporate VP of Product Abuse and Risk at Microsoft. Their session will examine the use of AI in cyber defence and the shift from traditional monitoring towards more automated protection.

The discussion highlights one of the central questions facing businesses: how to use AI tools to respond to increasingly complex threats without creating new risks. Security leaders are under pressure to show that new systems can improve detection and response while meeting governance and compliance requirements.

Another strand of the programme will focus on so-called agentic AI, an area attracting growing interest from technology buyers and software suppliers. A day-two session will feature Chiru Bhavansikar, Chief AI Officer at Arhasi AI, alongside Manish Ballal of AWS and Andreas Kollegger of Neo4j, discussing the practical use of knowledge graphs and intelligent systems.

The topic has gained prominence as businesses look beyond generative AI pilots towards systems that can take more autonomous actions across workflows. Even so, many organisations remain at an early stage of deployment, with open questions over data quality, oversight and where such systems can deliver measurable returns.

Advisory input

The programme has been developed with input from the DTX + UCX Advisory Board, which includes technology leaders from Vanquis Banking Group, Santander, Apollo, Segro and RSA. That mix of financial services, property and insurance firms suggests the event is aimed at sectors where digital transformation is closely tied to resilience, compliance and customer service.

Speakers from Liverpool City Region, GCHQ, the Home Office and N Brown are also due to present case studies across the two days. Their sessions will cover cyber resilience strategies, regulatory requirements and the use of AI in ways intended to be secure, ethical and commercially workable.

The inclusion of public sector voices alongside private sector operators reflects how technology planning is increasingly shaped by national security concerns and evolving rules on data, privacy and critical infrastructure. For many IT leaders, the challenge is no longer simply selecting tools, but integrating them into existing organisations without increasing operational fragility.

Wider themes

Customer and employee experience is another key area of the programme. Businesses have spent years digitising internal operations and consumer interactions, but many are now asking whether those changes have improved service, reduced friction or simply added layers of complexity.

By linking customer experience with trust and risk, the agenda mirrors a wider shift in how companies talk about transformation. Boards and senior executives are asking technology teams to show not only that systems can be deployed, but that they support better decision-making, clearer accountability and stronger resilience.

Every stage is built around real-world business challenges and includes educational content designed to show the role people play in successful transformation. That emphasis on skills, culture and implementation comes as many companies find that technology spending alone does not guarantee results.

The audience is expected to include IT decision-makers from across the technology stack, spanning IT service management, cyber security, cloud infrastructure, data management, communications, collaboration, customer experience and AI. Events like this have become a venue for suppliers, practitioners and policy figures to gauge how market interest is shifting, particularly as businesses move from experimentation to operational rollout.

In that context, the Manchester gathering appears positioned less as a product showcase and more as a forum for practical discussion about adoption, governance and organisational readiness. The agenda is intended to help delegates choose technologies for their organisation and embed them effectively to unlock measurable value.