Business leaders gathered at the IFS Connect Eastern Europe conference in Warsaw on May 19 to discuss why the ability to make rapid, bold investment decisions is now the primary competitive differentiator in the AI landscape.
The Urgent Need for Decisive AI Implementation
While businesses now have full access to advanced AI solutions, the ability to act quickly remains the bottleneck. Leaders warn that firms failing to integrate these technologies now will soon find themselves permanently outpaced by competitors.
Ewa Jodłowska, President of IFS Eastern Europe, emphasized that the conversation has shifted from the necessity of digital transformation to the critical need for speed, efficiency, and safety. AI should not be viewed as a passing trend, but as a practical tool for organizational management and decision-making.
Industrial AI in Operational Processes
IFS is championing the “Industrial AI” concept, embedding intelligence directly into operational and industrial workflows. Integrated via the IFS Cloud platform, these tools support asset management, logistics, and production scheduling.
Strategic components such as the Nexus Black solution and “Digital Workers”—automated agents—are designed to address specific business problems rather than existing as standalone autonomous tools. These technologies are focused on high-stakes tasks like predicting mechanical failures and optimizing supply chain operations.
Accelerating Business with Integrated Intelligence
At the “From Unlocked to Accelerated” fireside chat, experts Mathieu Daudigny and Grzegorz Gola argued that market leaders are those who react to change before it impacts the customer. They noted that the true value of AI lies in its ability to predict disruptions rather than merely speeding up existing tasks.
The ecosystem, anchored by IFS Cloud, aims to deliver measurable outcomes ranging from significant cost savings in predictive maintenance to enhanced operational efficiency. The goal is to offload repetitive tasks to AI, allowing human employees to focus on higher-value activities.
Strategic Partnerships and Practical Deployment
Collaboration with Microsoft is central to this strategy, combining IFS business solutions with Azure’s cloud infrastructure to ensure security and scalability. This partnership allows organizations to build custom AI agents tailored to their unique operational requirements.
Technical architects at IFS highlighted that AI cannot function effectively in a vacuum; it must be deeply embedded in daily operations. Through continuous learning mechanisms, these systems utilize historical data to improve their performance, turning complex project planning from a process of many iterations into a task taking only minutes.
Lessons from Organizational Transformation
The conference also showcased real-world implementations, with leaders from companies like Wawel SA and NFM Group sharing their experiences. Participants agreed that these projects are less about technology and more about organizational change, data quality, and creating a unified internal language.
The event concluded with the IFS Business Transformation Awards 2026, honoring companies such as SIG, Debon, Wawel, and Mlekovita for their excellence in integrating new technologies into their business models.