2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit | Potomac Officers Club
RegisterWHAT
According to artificial intelligence experts, there have been three major surges of AI development in history. We’re currently enmeshed in the largest and fastest moving one by far. More is getting done in a matter of days and months than has been created over the course of decades in the past. Especially in government and military, AI is now an integral part of how information is processed and complex systems function.
The age of AI being merely theoretical is over — which is why we’ve gathered real practitioners of the technology for our sixth annual AI Summit. This 2026 edition will feature top voices from federal agencies, Department of War components and the GovCon industry to discuss strategies, future plans and exciting use cases for how AI, machine learning and automation are transforming our world today.
*This event is closed to media.
Keynote Speaker
Speakers
Mark Andress
Global Vice President
Oracle Government Defense & Intelligence
Dr. Delester Brown
Chief Data & AI Officer
National Guard Bureau
Chris Brown
Public Sector Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Virtualitics Inc.
Dr. Jesus Caban
CDAO
Defense Health Agency (DHA)
Mark Chisam
Senior Solutions Engineer
Cloudera Government Solutions
Nicole Clayton
Vice President
Salesforce
Wally Coggins
Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer
Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA)
Tom Daly
Vice President of Technology & Solutions
Procentrix
Chandra Donelson
Chief Data and AI Officer and Director of Data Artificial Intelligence and Software
U.S. Space Force
Brandy Durham
Chief Data and AI Officer
MANTECH
Jonathan Elliott
Director of AI Rapid Capabilities Cell
DoD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office
Mark Fedeli
Director of Business Development
Seekr
Christopher Gordon
Vice President
BigBear.ai
Mark Gray
Chief Information Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Chief AI Officer
Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Wes Green
SVP, Global Public Sector
Invisible Technologies
Ashley Irwin
Senior Director of Alliances
Exiger
Stephen Kucharski
Former Chief Information Officer and Chief AI Officer of U.S. Small Business Administration
Logivia, LLC
Peter LaMontagne
CEO
SMX
Sridhar (Sri) Mantha
Acting Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
Christina Marchetti
Director of AI Strategy & Advisory Services
RightSeat.AI
Matthew McDonald
Vice President of Defense, Intel, and Health
ECS
Patrick McGarry
Federal Chief Data Officer
ServiceNow
Jay Meil
VP Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (and Chief Data Scientist)
SAIC
Justin Monaldo
Lead Specialist Solutions Architect for Generative AI and Machine Learning
Databricks
Dr. Eric Moore
Deputy to the Commanding General
U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command [DEVCOM]
Ben Needles
CTO, J2
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command [USINDOPACOM]
Dr. Quentin “Q” Noreiga
AIMS Program Manager
SOSi
Dr. Joe Norton
CIO
LMI
Katie Noyes
Chief AI Officer
Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
Leigh Palmer
VP, Federal, Services & Delivery
Google Public Sector
Shivani Pandya
GTM, National Security
OpenAI
Bharat Patel
Managing Director, AI Missions
Accenture Federal Services
Gerhard Pilcher
Vice President of Growth, Data and AI
MANTECH
Nick Rampersad
Director, Infrastructure Cloud Services /Data Services
U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)
Dr. Jennifer Sample
Chief Technology Officer
Empower AI
Nilanjan Sengupta
Head of Public Sector, North America
Thoughtworks
Angel Smith
President, Global Public Sector
Virtru
Randy Soper
Senior Director, Federal Data & AI Lead
Slalom
Adam Starr
Chief Information Officer
U.S. Office of Personnel Management
VADM (Ret.) Frank Whitworth
President, National Security
r4 Technologies
Clinton Wivell
Chief AI Product Officer
BTI360
Rich Zaremba
Chief Customer Officer
SAP NS2
Agenda
| 7:00am | 8:00am | Networking Reception |
| 8:00am | 8:05am | Welcome & Opening Remarks |
| 8:05am | 8:45am | Opening Keynote: Cameron Stanley and Brandy Durham (Introducer) |
| 8:45am | 9:20am | Morning Keynote |
| 9:20am | 9:50am | Network Break |
| 9:50am | 10:50am | Panel A: Does Your AI Play Well with Others?: Jay Meil (Moderator), Dr. Jesus Caban, Ben Needles, Nick Rampersad, and Nilanjan Sengupta |
| 9:50am | 10:50am | Panel B: Integrating AI into Legacy Federal Systems: Architectural Patterns that Work: Jennifer Sample (Moderator), Joe Norton, Stephen Kucharski, Wally Coggins, and VADM Retired Frank Whitworth |
| 9:50am | 10:50am | Panel C: Turning Barriers into Breakthroughs: Implementing GenAI for Mission: Clinton Wivell (Moderator), Dr. Quentin "Q" Noreiga, Justin Monaldo, and Shivani Pandya |
| 10:50am | 11:00am | Networking Break |
| 11:00am | 12:00pm | Panel A: Automating Government with AI: Randy Soper (Moderator), Sridhar (Sri) Mantha, Adam Starr, and Chris Brown |
| 11:00am | 12:00pm | Panel B: Building Mission-Ready AI Infrastructure: Designing a Data and Security Foundation for the Future: Mark Andress (Moderator), Mark Chisam, Nick Rampersad, and Katie Noyes |
| 11:00am | 12:00pm | Panel C: Operationalizing AI at Scale-Bridging the Gap from Prototype to Mission Impact: Dr. Delester Brown, Gerhard Pilcher, and Tom Daly (Moderator) |
| 12:00pm | 1:30pm | Networking Lunch |
| 12:15pm | 1:15pm | Lunch Panel: From Adoption to Adaptation: Making Federal AI Stick: Christina Marchetti (Moderator), Nicole Clayton, Patrick McGarry, Bharat Patel, and Christopher Gordon |
| 1:30pm | 2:30pm | Panel A: Effective, Excellent Enterprise AI Through Partnerships: Matthew Mcdonald (Moderator), Jonathan Elliott, Dr. Eric Moore, and Ashley Irwin |
| 1:30pm | 2:30pm | Panel B: The SaaS App Model Is Dead: Why AI Infrastructure Will Unify Your Data Estate: Wes Green (Moderator), Rich Zaremba, Leigh Palmer, Angel Smith, Mark Gray, and Jay Meil |
| 1:30pm | 2:30pm | Panel C: Operationalizing Vetted, Decision-Ready AI: Mark Fedeli (Moderator), Peter LaMontagne, and Chandra Donelson |
| 2:30pm | 3:00pm | Networking Break |
| 3:00pm | 3:35pm | Afternoon Keynote |
| 3:35pm | 4:10pm | Closing Keynote |
| 4:10pm | 4:15pm | Closing Comments |
