The headlines have AI everywhere. Step back, and a different picture emerges.
Autonomous attacks. Mass layoffs. Vendors rebranded overnight. The noise is constant — but most enterprises are still figuring out the basics. The technology is moving faster than the people side can keep up. Investments are climbing while adoption stalls.
Sound familiar? It should. We've been here before.
This is a candid working lunch for senior tech leaders navigating AI in security-sensitive environments. Light on slides, heavy on the questions you can't ask in front of a vendor.
Cameron Schuler.
Cameron Schuler
Chief Commercialization Officer & VP Industry Innovation, Vector Institute
Cameron has spent 15+ years inside the rooms where AI strategy actually gets decided — banks, pharma, government, and some of the most advanced AI institutions in the country. Former Executive Director of Amii (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute), where for 8 years he led one of the top-ranked machine learning groups in the world. His read on where we are: it's the internet circa 1997. The infrastructure is real, the hype is louder than the reality, and the companies that win the next decade aren't the ones with the flashiest tools — they're the ones who figure out the human side first.
A conversation, not a presentation.
- ~15 minutes: Cameron frames where AI actually stands right now — the hype gap, the adoption stall, the human-side bottleneck.
- ~70 minutes: Open Q&A. The room drives the conversation. Bring the questions you can't ask in front of a vendor.
- Throughout: Lunch. (Cameron has explicitly said talking with food in your mouth is encouraged.)
The details.
224 King St W, Toronto
~20–25 seats
Presented by Spark Recruiting and Bell, featuring the Vector Institute.
