2026 Artificial Intelligence Summit | Potomac Officers Club
WHAT
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 Speakers
Dr. Michelle Aten
Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Robert Hayes
Acting Chief AI Officer & Acting Chief Data Officer of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Senior Advisor
U.S. Department of Commerce
Cameron Stanley
Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer
U.S. Department of War (DOW)
Speakers
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
Ryan Close
Maven Director
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Tom Daly
Vice President of Technology & Solutions
Procentrix
Sean Dillon
CTO
Steampunk
Brandy Durham
Chief Data and AI Officer
MANTECH
Jonathan Elliott
Deputy Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (DCDAO) for Enterprise Programs
Office of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer [CDAO]
Mark Fedeli
Director of Business Development
Seekr
Germaine Forbes
Deputy Director for Future Capabilities, Policy, Planning, and Strategy
Program Executive Office Digital and Enterprise Services [PEO Digital]
George Forbes
Data & Digital Technical Advisor to the A3, HQE
U.S. Air Force
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
Robert Hammer
Deputy Executive Associate Director (EAD), Office of Management and Administration (M&A)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Ashley Irwin
Senior Director of Alliances
Exiger
Kiwah Kendrick
Vice President Mission Integration Space & Intel
SAIC
Stephen Kucharski
Former Chief Information Officer and Chief AI Officer of U.S. Small Business Administration
Logivia, LLC
Peter LaMontagne
CEO
SMX
Ruksana Lodi
Artificial Intelligence Officer
Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)
Osama Malik
Senior Director
Oracle Government Defense & Intelligence
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
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
Dr. Jennifer Sample
Chief Technology Officer
Empower AI
Nilanjan Sengupta
Head of Public Sector, North America
Thoughtworks
Angel Smith
President, Global Public Sector
Virtru
Amos Snead
CEO
The DUX Group
Randy Soper
Senior Director, Federal Data & AI Lead
Slalom
Adam Starr
Chief Information Officer
U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Danny Stoian
Director, Office of Management Strategy and Solutions Office of Management Strategy and Solutions
U.S. Department of State
VADM (Ret.) Frank Whitworth
President, National Security
r4 Technologies
Dietrich Wiegmann
Army Research Directorate Director
U.S. Army
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 | 8:30am | Opening Keynote: Cameron Stanley and Brandy Durham (Introducer) |
| 8:30am | 8:55am | Morning Keynote: Dr. Michelle Aten and Kiwah Kendrick (Introducer) |
| 8:55am | 9:20am | From Innovation to Impact: How AI Is Transforming the U.S. Patent System Fireside Chat: Jennifer Sample (Introducer), Robert Hayes, and Amos Snead |
| 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, Nilanjan Sengupta, Bharat Patel, and Ben Needles |
| 9:50am | 10:50am | Panel B: Integrating AI into Legacy Federal Systems: Architectural Patterns that Work: Jennifer Sample (Moderator), Joe Norton, Stephen Kucharski, Helena Fu 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, Dr. Michelle Aten, 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: Osama Malik (Moderator), George Forbes, Mark Chisam, 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, Ruksana Lodi, Robert Hammer, 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, Sean Dillon, and Christopher Gordon |
| 1:30pm | 2:30pm | Panel A: Effective, Excellent Enterprise AI Through Partnerships: Matthew Mcdonald (Moderator), Jonathan Elliott, Mr. Dietrich Wiegmann, Ryan Close, 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), Germaine Forbes, Danny Stoian, and Peter LaMontagne |
| 2:30pm | 2:35pm | Closing Comments |
