The Digitally Resilient Enterprise: AI-Led Transformation in Aerospace & Defence

OVERVIEW

With Rupert Jones CBE, Senior Advisor to IBM and former Commander of the UK Defence's Standing Joint Force Headquarters sharing his experience.

Aerospace & Defence leaders are under pressure to modernise at pace—while maintaining mission assurance, regulatory compliance, and operational resilience. Yet many transformation programmes still stall at the same point: digital progress in one function creates friction, cost, or risk elsewhere.

This private dinner brings together senior A&D executives to explore what “digital transformation that works” looks like in 2026—moving beyond isolated technology upgrades to enterprise-wide change that connects finance, supply chain, engineering, and operations through shared data, intelligent workflows, and trusted decisioning.

We will examine how organisations are using AI and automation to improve forecasting, procurement, production planning, and financial control—without sacrificing governance, security, or accountability. The discussion will focus on practical lessons: where digital transformation is genuinely unlocking performance and resilience, where it introduces new complexity, and how leaders are building operating models that can scale across programmes, platforms, and partners. We’ll discuss:

• Digital thread to digital trust: connecting data across functions without losing control

• AI-enabled supply chain and finance: better forecasting, faster decisions, fewer surprises

• Transformation at scale: governance, operating models, and what separates success from “pilot purgatory”