IBM Wins at the World AI Expo
We are delighted to announce that James Hunter, Program Director for IBM DevOps, was awarded DevOps AI Leader of the Year 2025 at the World AI Expo in Dubai. The award was presented by His Excellency Mohammed Abdullah Ibrahim Al Marzooki on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum.
About the World AI Expo 2025
The World AI Expo is a comprehensive AI conference, offering a platform for innovation and collaboration for businesses in the AI industry. Sponsored by the Dubai Government, the event brought together leading experts and companies from around the world. Attendees experienced AI presentations, keynotes, workshops, hackathons, an expo, and seminars, ensuring they stay at the forefront of AI advancements. Over 1500 AI corporate leaders from startup to Fortune 500 companies attended the World AI Expo.
James Hunter's contributions for IBM
James Hunter gave a keynote presentation on "The Rise of Agentic AI: How DevOps Empowers Reskilling and Safe Adoption." He also participated in two roundtable discussions. In his keynote presentation, James discussed:
- The move to systems of intelligence.
- The importance of splitting the assessment of successful AI projects into experiments and incubation projects vs. implementation and adoption projects.
- How DevOps principles make software delivery fast, secure, and agile.
- How IBM Watsonx Orchestrate and IBM DevOps Automation can help teams reskill and adopt AI agents safely, and track ROI using value stream analytics.
On LinkedIn, “One of the standout moments for me was attending the session by James Hunter, Program Director at IBM. With over 15 years of experience leading AI and DevOps automation at scale, James shared powerful insights into how IBM is leveraging AI to enhance agility and reliability in software delivery. His approach to integrating AI within large-scale distributed systems was both inspiring and deeply practical.” Celine Del Rosario, Vice President, Arcadia Consulting
Awards and recognition
In addition to being recognized as ‘DevOps AI Leader of the Year’, James Hunter's keynote presentation also received a best-in-conference award.
Roundtable Sessions Summaries
1. AI in the Enterprise: Challenges and Best Practices
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- James discussed how enterprises can drive meaningful AI innovation without destabilizing critical systems or overwhelming teams with change fatigue.
- He emphasized the importance of a hybrid platform and the need to protect data.
- He shared his views on building AI governance structures that satisfy boards, regulators, and risk teams without stalling innovation or discouraging experimentation.
2. AI in 2030: AI for Business Growth and Digital Transformation
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- James talked about how emerging AI technologies are poised to reshape industries and what businesses must do today to stay ahead of the curve.
- He also addressed concerns about market consolidation and jobs.
Learn more about IBM Watsonx Orchestrate and IBM DevOps Automation
- IBM Watsonx Orchestrate is an orchestration platform that enables teams to build, deploy, and manage AI assistants and agents that automate workflows and processes with generative AI.
- IBM DevOps Automation is a single DevSecOps delivery platform with optional AI. It is an open platform that enables teams to plan and manage work items, design and architect solutions, generate code, automate deployment, automate all types of testing, automate release management, and track ROI using value stream analysis and reporting.
Reach out to James Hunter for information about his experience, and to learn how IBM’s DevSecOps solutions can help you make your team's software delivery fast, secure, and agile.