ALIA Global Attends RavenPack's Exponential London Summit 2026

Will AI disrupt dominant geopolitical narratives and media biases? How will AI's takeover of quantitative research and financial data impact systematic trading and businesses more generally? These were just some of the themes explored at the Age of AI Exponential Summit at the iconic Freemasons' Hall in London, hosted by RavenPack and co-sponsored by MT Newswires, Dow Jones, Quartr and BlueMatrix.

ALIA Global was invited to attend this invitation-only executive event, which brought together leading industry figures, AI specialists and C-suite executives from across the financial services and technology sectors.

A few key takeaways from the panels:

📍 Agents are not humans. Aakarsh Ramchandani reminded attendees that businesses need to consider permissions carefully and put together the right team to ensure the successful deployment of AI solutions.

📍 In addition to forecasting, businesses should also be 'nowcasting', focusing on substitutability in light of the current geopolitical climate, as explained by Charles-Albert Lehalle of École Polytechnique. Businesses need to identify political narratives which could impact markets before they do.

📍 There is no AI strategy without a data strategy first. Snowflake made the case that businesses must get their underlying data infrastructure right before layering AI on top of it.

📍AI can make businesses appear smarter, but it can also make them lazier. Faster and bigger is not always better. A high volume of data processed at speed may simply create a high volume of noise. These points were made compellingly by Timothee Consigny of H2O Asset Management.

📍 Responsible business leaders should consider carefully whether they are using AI to simply replace staff and cut costs or to empower staff to excel. As Brooks McFeely, Founder and CEO of MT Newswires, observed, the leaders in the room will benefit greatly from AI adoption, but the broader question is how decision-makers bring everyone else with them.

Rabya Anwar attended alongside Adrian Fancourt from Amazon Web Services, Sindhu Mishra from Mastercard, Adriana Menezes Whiteley of the Financial Times, Jon Bratseth of Vespa, Joanna Appleton of Dow Jones, Lars Mitchell from Peel Hunt, Peter Hafez, Sheraz Bhatti from Quartr, Joel Koroniak, Ross Bailey of The Economist, Samuel Livingstone, Abhijeet Gaikwad, Petr Merkuryev, Jacob Fant, Mark Trowbridge, Miriam Gilbert, Geraldine Spurway and others.

A special thank you to Jocelyn Rodriguez Yanes, Sally Halion and Natalia Rodriguez for the invitation and organisation of the event.

ALIA Global advises businesses on implementing AI solutions across jurisdictions in a compliant and cost-effective way. For further information on our artificial intelligence and financial services advisory practice, please contact us directly by scanning the below: