Implementing AI: A Strategic Blueprint for Success
Most AI initiatives stall between the slide deck and production. Greg Hatch, SVP of AI and Emerging Technologies at Gage, closes IAUG Converge 2026 with a working blueprint for taking enterprise AI from idea to operating reality.
Two Sessions, One Message
Greg is on stage twice in Savannah. He joins the opening general session panel on the future of enterprise communications, then closes his breakout with a practical, workshop-style walkthrough of what it actually takes to make AI land in a regulated enterprise.
Greg Hatch is SVP of AI and Emerging Technologies at Gage Technologies, with a 35-year technology career spanning Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Intel, Palo Alto Networks, and now Gage. His perspective comes from the field: networks, security, and the contact centers that run on them.
What Should Your Next Move With AI Be?
The session draws on proven strategies from voice and customer experience, the two sectors leading real AI adoption. It covers the full arc: standalone product features through enterprise-wide architecture, and everything that has to be true underneath them.
Attendees leave with tangible tasks: immediate, role-specific checklists for managers and individual contributors alike.
The Runway Is Shorter Than the Deck Suggests
The industry numbers are blunt. RAND Corporation reports that over 80% of AI projects fail to deliver their intended business value. MIT found that 95% of generative AI pilots never scale beyond their original department. S&P Global found that 42% of companies abandoned most of their AI initiatives in 2025, up from 17% the year before. Most AI conversations at conferences stay in that gap. This session is about closing it.
There is a second conversation Greg brings to the stage. AI-ready means network-ready. Fewer than 5% of customer environments are prepared for the traffic profile AI workloads introduce, with surges of 3x to 8x on networks that were never sized for them. Buying a platform does not remove the network and security burden. Someone still has to carry it, and that is the job Gage staff have been doing for 20+ years.
Architecting the Future
Greg also joins the IAUG Converge general session panel, Architecting the Future: Modernizing Core Communications and Empowering Today's Professionals, alongside speakers from Avaya and McMaster University. The panel balances rapid AI acceleration against the non-negotiable need for rock-solid communication infrastructure, closing on how the role of the enterprise communication professional itself is shifting. If you missed him at Converge 2025, this is the year to fix that.
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Readiness Assessment
The blueprint only works if it starts with a real look at your environment. Tell us where you are on the journey and we will schedule a structured assessment: network readiness, security posture, data foundations, and the use cases worth funding first. Most assessments take 30 minutes to scope.
- IAUG Converge 2026 session catalog, "Implementing AI: A Strategic Blueprint for Success" iaug.org
- RAND Corporation, "What Can Be Done About AI Failure Rates?" (2025) rand.org
- MIT NANDA study on generative AI pilot failure (2025) fortune.com
- S&P Global Market Intelligence, 42% abandoning AI initiatives in 2025 ciodive.com