WEBINAR 2: Should You Build, Buy, or Wait?
1 hour to make smarter, strategic AI decisions and a window into the Executive Education course.
You’ve moved past the hype. You understand AI’s capabilities and limitations.
Now comes the next executive challenge: how should your organisation act?
Build in-house and control the IP... but at what cost?
Buy off-the-shelf solutions and accelerate deployment... but risk vendor lock-in?
Wait and observe... but risk falling behind competitors?
Each option comes with trade-offs in cost, time, capability, risk, and long-term flexibility. Many organisations make these decisions without a structured approach, leading to stalled initiatives, wasted budgets, or missed opportunities.
This one-hour webinar gives senior leaders the frameworks and practical insights to make these decisions with confidence. It also serves as a gateway to the Executive Education course, where participants go deeper, applying these frameworks hands-on to their own organisations.
Why Attend?
Executives are under pressure to “do something with AI,” yet few have clarity on:
What building in-house truly requires (talent, data, infrastructure, time, and cost)
When buying or partnering is the smarter route
How to evaluate AI vendors and avoid costly lock-in
When waiting is the optimal strategic move
This session gives you a structured approach to evaluating AI deployment options before committing resources.
What We’ll Cover
1. Build, Buy, or Wait - The Decision Framework
We explore when each approach makes sense, factoring in:
Organisational maturity and AI readiness
Strategic priorities and competitive pressures
Resource availability and capability gaps
2. The Realities of Building AI In-House
Going internal is tempting, but what does it actually take?
Building and retaining talent
Preparing and governing data
Infrastructure, tooling, and integration
Time-to-value and total cost of ownership
3. Buying, Partnering, and Vendor Evaluation
Buying AI solutions or partnering with third parties is not automatically easier. We cover:
Evaluating vendor capabilities and differentiators
Avoiding “AI washing” and overpromising
Understanding contract terms and avoiding lock-in
4. Waiting Strategically
Sometimes pausing is the smartest move. Learn when waiting is the right strategy and when delay could be costly.
5. Hands-On Exposure and Lessons Learned
Sector deep dives: Financial Services (fraud detection, compliance automation, customer insights), Real Estate (occupancy analytics, ESG reporting, predictive maintenance), plus one additional sector tailored to the cohort
Real-world lessons from successes and failures
Demonstrations of no-code prototyping, workflow automation, and generative AI tools
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this webinar, you will be able to:
Design AI implementation roadmaps with milestones and KPIs
Assess build vs. buy trade-offs using a structured framework
Evaluate vendor capabilities and risks with confidence
Build functional prototypes using accessible tools
Make defensible, strategic decisions on AI deployment
You will also see how these frameworks are applied in the Executive Education course, where they work hands-on with expert guidance to address real organisational challenges.
Who Should Attend
C-suite and senior executives
Board members and non-executive directors
Strategy, transformation, and innovation leaders
Anyone responsible for approving, funding, or overseeing AI initiatives
No coding required
Speakers
This session brings together leaders who have lived the build, buy, and partnership decisions in real organisations, alongside UCL CSRI academics researching AI deployment and governance.
[Speaker names and credentials to be announced]
The Executive Education Course [Link to website]
This webinar is the first in a broader collaboration with Acuity Data, designed to support leaders who want to move beyond experimentation and build credible, responsible AI strategies.
For those who want to go deeper, this session connects directly to our Executive Education course, where participants apply these frameworks hands-on to their own organisations with expert guidance.
The webinar gives you the foundations.
The course helps you implement them.