Retrofit or Reimagine: An Agentic AI Business Strategy Workshop
Decide how far agents should take one operation you run: retrofit to improve existing workflows, or reimagine the roles and workflows.
Your engineers can build the agents. This decision is yours. Bring one operation you run and the number it is measured on, and leave with the strategy, the first moves, and an owner for each.
Retrofit or Reimagine is a half-day agentic AI workshop for executives, December 3 in San Francisco, led by Blaine Mathieu, author of "The River Doesn't Wait: A Senior Executive Guide to Navigating the Surge of Agentic AI and Pulling Away From Your Competitors."
Included
December 3rd workshop and lunch for you + a colleague*
Nine-sheet Team Kit with templates to facilitate your work with your team
January 14th optional 60-minute online session
A signed copy of The River Doesn't Wait
Membership in AI Realized community
*A second seat is included in your ticket price if you want to bring someone. One seat is all you need.
Workshop Description
The work begins with one operation you run and the number it is measured on. You work out what agentic AI genuinely changes about the work inside it, and what it leaves alone. You will test that read against an executive from another industry who has every reason to challenge it, which is the fastest way to find out whether it holds. From there you will decide where that operation needs to sit, somewhere between retrofitting agents into the workflow you run today and reimagining how the work gets done, and someone at your table will argue the opposite case.
The morning closes with the part most strategies leave out: re-evaluating the decision as the capabilities change. Capability is advancing in large steps and arriving fast, so you cannot assume a position you take in December still holds a year from now. You will write three questions against that operation, assign an owner, and set a review rhythm. Those questions tell you when your decision has stopped being right months before your results do, and they are yours to run from the following Monday.
By noon you have a written strategy for one operation, the strongest argument against it already answered, first moves with an owner on each, and a standing review that keeps it current.
You will also leave knowing which conversation to convene next week, and the names of the executives who belong in it.
The room is deliberately small, because the working segments depend on every person getting their own operation in front of the group.
The program has two parts
December 3 is the working session. January 14 is the check-in.
Six weeks after the workshop, the cohort reconvenes online for sixty minutes to compare what moved, what held, and what surprised them. It is optional and open to every attendee and it exists for a reason. A position taken in December deserves a look in January, because the capability keeps advancing and the competitive picture keeps shifting. The reconvene demonstrates the argument the whole morning rests on: strategy that adapts outperforms strategy that was merely correct once.
A second seat is optional
Your registration covers two seats so you have the choice. One seat is all you need. If a specific person already comes to mind, whoever owns the data your operation depends on, or the peer whose function you would have to work with, bring them and you make the decision together instead of re-selling it later. A third seat is $245.
Part of the morning is spent working with executives from outside your own company, because a position that survives a stranger survives a board. Part of it is spent beside anyone you brought.
On the registration form, select +1 Colleague and we will email you a free ticket code for them once your registration is approved. Select +2 Colleagues and we will send a free code and one for $245.
Candor by design
Chatham House Rule applies throughout. Participants are free to use what they hear, and the identity and affiliation of every speaker stays in the room.
We also seat a single company from each competitive set, so every executive in the room can speak plainly about their own business. Everything specific you work on stays in your own kit and goes home with you.
No vendor pitches, and nothing to buy at the end.
Who Should Attend
This workshop is built for executives who intend to use agentic AI to improve or transform an operation or function they run, at a scope where changing direction carries real cost.
Seats are reserved for executives running operations and shared services, customer care and member services, marketing and sales operations, claims and underwriting, servicing, lending, and revenue cycle, supply chain, fraud, KYC and financial crime operations, and for divisional COOs and general managers.
Also welcome: CIOs, CTOs, chief transformation officers and chiefs of staff, who frequently bring line executives with them.
This is not a session on building agents or choosing vendors, and it will not help you write a company-wide AI strategy. It works on one operation, run by the person in the seat.
Every registration is reviewed and we assign competitive categories. You will hear back within two business days. Tickets are non-refundable. If you cannot attend, email us and we will transfer your seat to a colleague.
Questions about fit? Email christina.ellwood@airealizedsummit.com and we will get back to you.
Why Attend
Know which of your operations agentic AI can genuinely run, and which it will only touch at the edges, so your next investment lands where it returns.
Choose between retrofitting agents into today's workflow and redesigning the work outright, for one operation you run, with the cost and the upside of each made explicit.
Pressure-test that choice against executives from a dozen other industries, before you commit budget and political capital to it.
Leave with a review you run yourself, so you catch the moment your approach needs to change months ahead of your results.
Take home the method and the kit, and repeat all of this across every operation your organization runs.
Program
8:30 AM Check in, coffee, networking
9:00 AM Where agentic AI is genuinely moving, and where it is noise
9:35 AM Your own outcome: how exposed the work behind it is, and defending your read
10:40 AM How far to take it, and the argument against you
11:25 AM Keeping it current: your three questions, an owner, a rhythm
12:05 PM Lunch and open conversation
12:30 PM Close
Thursday, January 14 60-minute optional online reconvene
About the Organizers and Host
👋 Blaine Mathieu is the author of The River Doesn't Wait, a former Gartner analyst, and a multi-time CEO, CMO and CPO, with clients including Ford, SoftBank, ABB, TotalEnergies and China State Grid. He first published in 1990, in AI pioneer Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Intelligent Machines, and has spent three decades turning emerging technology into business value.
The material in this workshop comes from Blaine's private work with executive teams, and December 3 is the only open session.
On the book:
"An easy-to-read book that resonates very well with how I see AI development and implementation in the coming years." — Morten Wierod, CEO, ABB
"This is a leadership mindshift moment. Blaine lays it out clearly: retrofit what benefits from optimization and reimagine the future to compete differently with AI." — Brian Solis, Head of Global Innovation, ServiceNow
👋 Christina Ellwood is a Silicon Valley tech executive and startup advisor who has helped dozens of companies drive market traction and AI adoption.
👋 Mike Gorback is a venture and startup corporate attorney with K&L Gates.
📍 K&L Gates, Four Embarcadero Center, San Francisco. In person, a short walk from BART and Muni.
🗓 Thursday, December 3, 2026, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM
🔒 Chatham House Rule. One company per competitive set.
The surge rewards executives who take a position and keep it current. Take yours on December 3.