Main Stage Duo / Fireside Chat
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Most event businesses are having the wrong conversation about AI. Someone brings a tool name to the table, it gets bought, a licence sits unused and nothing changes.
Meanwhile the real questions go unanswered. Is this worth investing in? Does it compete with a launch for capacity? Do we even know where we are?
Agop Niksarlioglu became CTO of dmg events in July 2026, after two decades running digital and transformation across 25 countries and 200 show and a spell outside the industry altogether.
Baris Onay has spent his career on the same problem from the outside, working with organisers on innovation and transformation, and has known and worked with Agop since 2010.
They'll talk candidly about what a new CTO finds when they lift the bonnet on a successful, fast-growing organiser. Why tool proliferation is a symptom and not the problem. How you make the case for digital when a country launch is worth more on paper. And what an honest state-of-digital assessment tells a board that nobody wants to hear.
No product pitches. No roadmaps. Just the conversation event businesses should be having behind closed doors.
Speakers
Agop is Chief Technology Officer at dmg events, leading its technology, data and digitisation agenda. He brings more than 20 years of international experience, including over a decade in the events industry, delivering fit-for-purpose digital operating models across global markets.
Dr. Barış Onay is a London-based media and events entrepreneur and advisor who helps B2B event and media businesses unlock sustainable, double-digit organic growth by making sense of their data, digital and marketing. Over 20+ years, he has led growth, transformation and value creation across exhibitions and B2B media for PE-backed, publicly listed and founder-led organisers. Today, he splits his time between Precision Communities and C-level advisory work. He is the creator of the Event Strategy Bot, a free-to-use AI bot used by 1,000+ events globally to create growth strategies and turn insights into practical growth roadmaps.