GenAI Maturity: From Demo to Reliable Production and Agentic Engineering

About this event

The MLAI Meetup is a community for AI researchers and professionals which hosts monthly talks on exciting research. Our format is: • 6:00 - 6:20: Socializing • 6:20 - 6:40: Announcements and AI news • 6:40 - 7:40: Talk(s) and Q&A • 7:40 - 8:00 Networking • 8:00: Head to the nearest pub for dinner Gilbert Pochet: "GenAI Maturity: From Demo to Reliable Production and Agentic Engineering" Talk Description: GenAI has made it easy to build impressive prototypes. The harder challenge is turning them into reliable production systems. Many projects stall because teams cannot prove business impact or lack the engineering practices needed to evaluate, operate and maintain them effectively. This talk explores that gap, from measurable outcomes and evaluation to production engineering discipline. It then looks at agentic engineering as the next step: using coding agents to accelerate delivery while keeping clear plans, objective verification and human accountability. The goal is to move from “this looks useful” to “this creates measurable value in production” and then deliver that value faster without losing engineering quality. I would structure the presentation around just four sections: • 1\. The prototype trap: impressive demos are easy, production value is not. • 2\. Prove the impact: business metrics, baseline, measurable outcome, evaluation. • 3\. Build for production: reliability, observability, acceptance criteria, deterministic checks, maintainability. • 4\. Scale the engineering team: agentic engineering, development plans, verification, architecture preservation, faster delivery with quality. Speaker bio: After studying Computer Science, I pursued a Master’s degree focused on Machine Learning and AI because early in my career I saw how inefficient and manual many organizational processes still were, and became convinced by AI’s potential to transform industries and solve problems beyond the limits of traditional software. Over the last 12 years, working across North and South America, Germany, and Australia in enterprises, startups, and later as a CTO, I’ve focused on turning complex AI systems into real products that drive growth and impact. Throughout this journey, I’ve contributed to organizations including SEEK, oOh!media, and Mr Yum. Over time, I realised the biggest challenge in AI is not only building the technology, but helping organizations align execution, trust, and decision-making. That pushed me to combine AI engineering with strategic execution, stakeholder management, negotiation, and leadership to move AI initiatives from ideas into scalable production systems.