All 2026 Conference Sessions

Gartner Opening Keynote: Identity at the Core

Speakers:

Michael Kelley, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

Akif Khan, VP Analyst, Gartner

Key takeaways:

• Implement IAM as the business control plane to enable resilient and secure digital services

• IAM is essential to modern business, yet its value is often unrecognized due to budget limitations, communication issues, and insufficient decisionmaking authority for IAM teams

• Change this perception by using outcome-driven metrics, storytelling, and clear strategy communication to advocate for greater recognition and decision rights

Session: How to Secure and Govern Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agents at Scale

Speaker: 

Max Goss, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

Key Takeaways:

• Establish a multidisciplinary approach to M365 Copilot governance, including digital workplace, compliance, identity and security teams. 

• Identify your sensitive information and high-risk users, and leverage data security and identity governance tools to apply protection. 

• Design mandatory responsible AI training to educate employees on how to work safely with AI tools, adopting a “trust but verify” approach.  

Session: How is Decentralized Identity Changing IAM?

Speaker:

Michael Kelley, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

Key takeaways:

• Explore your environment for any possible use cases for verifiable credentials and determine which of those use cases would make the most sense as a POC. 

• Decide what good looks like for a POC, and if your focus is on saving time and money, or user experience. 

• If the POC is successful, operationalize it and move it to production, if the POC is not successful, fail fast and move onto the next most viable candidate. 

Session: The Top Predictions of Cybersecurity

Speaker:

Charlie Winckless, VP Analyst, Gartner

Key takeaways:

• Predict: Through 2030, 1/3 of the work in IT will be spent remediating AI data debt to secure AI. 

Key Action: Assess data and prioritise remediation efforts for collaborative teams 

• Predict: By 2027, 30% of organizations will require comprehensive sovereignty of their cloud security controls to address continued geopolitical turmoil.

Key Action: Inventory your cloud-tethered security solutions and their current sovereignty

• Predict: By 2030, the C-suite will require CISOs forecast the financial impact of control friction, not just the business impact of cyber threats.

Key Action: Design limited innovation zones to allow experimentation with lowered risk