AI Breakfast: Where Strategy Outruns the Hype

Not every AI conversation needs a stage. Some just need the right table.

Busy mornings rarely leave space for real thinking. Most conversations about AI happen on the move – between calls and deadlines. They might sound confident, but they rarely go deep enough to support real decisions.

AI Breakfast was created to change that.

It’s a small, private gathering designed to slow things down on AI hype and dive into the heart of AI shift. One table. A warm breakfast. A relaxed pace. A setting where experienced professionals can talk honestly about how AI is actually used in practice.

Alongside the S-PRO team, invited speakers share systems they’ve built and challenges they’ve faced first-hand. That keeps the conversation grounded in reality, not promises. To keep it that way, the format matters.

The Concept: Shrinking the Room to Expand the Dialogue

The idea was simple: to improve the conversation, you have to shrink the room. We didn’t want a massive crowd; we wanted a high-stakes dialogue over a warm breakfast and fresh coffee.

It all started with the first edition of AI Breakfast at the Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten in Zurich. The success of that first morning proved that business leaders are done with abstract promises. There is something about a historic guild house and a hot breakfast that makes people talk more honestly. When you remove the pressure of a public audience, the real questions emerge:

How do we keep our proprietary data from leaking into public models? Who is responsible when the system fails?

The takeaways from our inaugural sessions became the foundation of our entire series:

Waiting is not a strategy.

AI is a moving target; those who start early lead the way. You don’t need a perfect strategy to start, but you do need a starting point. Waiting for “the next big model” is just financing your competitor’s lead.

Start small to stay safe.

We advocate for using non-sensitive datasets initially to gain experience. This allows a company to build its “AI muscle” without risking core business assets or violating compliance. It’s about learning how to manage the technology before it manages you.

The tools are already in the room.

Most attendees at our tables are already managing AI projects daily. This confirmed our belief that the market has moved from “testing” to “scaling.” The question is no longer “Can it work?” but “How do we make it permanent?”

Building on that energy, we turned the breakfast into a global series. Throughout 2025, we took the table to major tech hubs: a return to Zurich, a loft in New York City, and a vibrant hub in Amsterdam.

Practical AI: Frameworks for Moving from Pilot to Profit

S-PRO experts Dustin Schulze and Ihor Tanyenkov used these mornings to share the “Practical AI” frameworks. We believe that the biggest mistake a company can make is treating AI as a “magic box” rather than a software engineering challenge. Companies are excited about the potential of LLMs but paralyzed by the complexity of implementation. Our methodologies anchor every table by focusing on 2 primary, brutal tools:

1. The Impact-Effort Matrix

This is a filter for prioritizing use cases. In many companies, the loudest voice in the room dictates the AI roadmap. We replace that with cold logic. If a project sounds innovative but takes 12 months to show a minor gain in efficiency, we drop it. We look for quick wins – high-impact, low-effort automations that prove value in weeks. This builds the internal confidence (and budget) needed for larger, more transformative autonomous systems.

2. The AI Maturity Model

Many companies get stuck in a cycle of constant testing. They have dozens of small Proof of Concepts (PoCs) that never make it to production. We discuss the exact technical and organizational shifts required to move from a lab environment to a full-scale deployment where AI is woven into the daily workflow. E.g. addressing data pipelines, security guardrails, and user adoption from day one.

To give our guests a head start, we also shared our internal framework for spotting AI use cases. It’s the same logic we use at S-PRO to decide which projects are worth our engineering focus.

Shifting Perspectives: Trust, Autonomy, and Proven Results

The conversation at our breakfasts always evolves when we bring in diverse perspectives. AI isn’t just a tech problem; it’s a trust problem and a leadership problem. At the table, we heard from the experts who are shaping the industry:

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger: As a pioneer in the Swiss AI ecosystem, Dalith provided the strategic “why” at our inaugural session. She framed the global landscape, helping leaders understand that AI adoption is not a choice, but a fundamental shift in how businesses exist in the 21st century.

Francois Jolles (IUCN): Representing the International Union for Conservation of Nature – essentially the “UN for Nature” – Francois shared how AI can be a force for global good. He highlighted the shift toward mission-driven AI adoption, where technology serves the planet. At S-PRO, we were honored to turn this vision into reality by developing an AI Document Processing tool designed to manage complex resolutions and recommendations. In the next section, we will take a closer look at the technical side and the specific impact this solution had on IUCN’s global operations.

Naeem Nelson (Broadridge Financial Solutions): Naeem went straight for the jugular – Trust. In finance, if the AI isn’t 100% reliable and auditable, it’s a liability, not an asset. He challenged the room to see AI as the new, invisible infrastructure of financial integrity, where precision is the only currency that matters.

Erinc Karatoprak (Oppr.ai): Erinc pushed toward the edge of Enterprise Autonomy. He focused on the critical leap from AI as a “copilot” (which still requires a human to do the work) to AI as an “agent” (systems capable of executing complex workflows independently).

As one of the best AI solutions development companies, we brought our own perspective and shared deep knowledge during these mornings. We showcased results from the S-PRO R&D team, highlighting successful implementation of advanced AI development tools across client projects.

Chat R&R for IUCN

Building AI for the International Union for Conservation of Nature comes with a unique set of stakes. This is the global authority on the status of the natural world – often called the “UN for Nature.” For them, efficiency is secondary to absolute precision. There is zero margin for error when your data dictates international environmental policy and protection efforts for endangered species.

Developing the Chat R&R tool for the IUCN had 3 primary goals.

• Building the AI for Intelligent Summarization and Contextual Awareness demanded advanced natural language processing to identify thematic clusters and historical context across dense, interconnected texts.
• Managing the sheer complexity of the document landscape required the AI to process and synthesize over 1,466 policy documents, including 695 active Resolutions and Recommendations.
• Balancing Advanced Technology with a User-Friendly Experience, meaning we had to deliver complex back-end functions – like sophisticated filtering and hallucination mitigation – through an intuitive chat interface for IUCN’s employees.

The development of Chat R&R for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) served as a prime example of S-PRO’s commitment to precision-first AI implementation, a case study we showcased at the AI Breakfast event.

Moreover, in October 2025, IUCN unveiled the ChatR&R solution at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi – one of the largest global events dedicated to nature conservation and sustainable development. The presentation drew strong attention: attendees were impressed by how the tool instantly retrieves, connects, and summarizes insights from decades of IUCN documents and records.

MODO Energy

Modo Energy is a leading data analysis company that provides valuable, unique market insights to help energy companies build, finance and operate the energy system of the future.

We demonstrated how to build platforms that find the “signal” in the chaos of energy market analytics. In a sector where every second and every decimal point represents financial risk, we showed how predictive AI can stabilize decision-making.

Compliance Aspekte

Compliance Aspekte is a platform with which companies can manage their compliance with various requirements, including the GDPR, ISO 27001, IT-Grundschutz, and many others.

We showcased an AI Co-Pilot that transforms the manual nightmare of regulatory compliance and audits into a smart, semi-autonomous flow, reducing human error in high-liability environments.

While we only had time for a few deep dives at the breakfasts, our portfolio covers a wider range of challenges, from healthcare to logistics. Explore the full list of S-PRO AI Case Studies here.

What’s Next?

Our roadshow continues to grow, with our next major stop planned for Salt Lake City, USA, in 2026. We’re keeping the circle small – under 30 guests – to make sure every question gets a concrete answer.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment; look for your leverage. Real results start where the presentations end and the work with actual data begins. The era of rehearsals is over; it’s time for deployment.

Want a seat at the table?

If you have insights to share or are looking for answers among peers, fill out the form with a quick note: “want to join AI breakfast” and we’ll reach out for the next session.

Can’t wait for the next event?

We can bring the brain trust to you. S-PRO runs tailored AI Workshops for individual teams where we break down your processes, identify your highest-impact use cases, and build a clear technical roadmap. Just drop a line and we’ll set it all.

See you!