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Belgium 21-10-25 Squad Only Physical english

AI in Practice ; What it really takes to move from pilot to production

Every organisation has a handful of AI pilots. But very few have scaled them. The models are accurate. The vision is clear. But something’s always in the way; lack of infrastructure, unclear ownership, security concerns, or just plain fatigue. This is a conversation for people in the messy middle of the AI journey, those navigating the leap from promising prototypes to operational value.

Belgium 21-10-25 Invitation Only Physical english

CIONET Round Table - From Disconnected Data to Unified Insight ; Building a 360° customer view to unlock commercial growth

In today's competitive landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. They demand a personalised, seamless experience at every touchpoint, from initial marketing contact to post-sale service. Unified data is at the heart of creating engaging customer experiences and is meant to fuel the 360 profile. However, for many organizations, a complete picture of the customer is fragmented, with critical data scattered in disconnected systems and departments. This exclusive roundtable will bring together Digital Leaders active in multiple industries to discuss a critical challenge: breaking down data silos to build a true 360° view of the customer. We will explore how to solve the complex integration challenges that prevent a unified view, and how to transform disparate data into a single source of truth. Join us to: Discover how to overcome the technical hurdles of integrating critical business systems, such as ERP and CRM platforms, to unify customer data. Explore real-world case studies on how organisations have successfully created unified customer insights to enhance personalisation and boost commercial and operational efficiency. Discuss best practices for turning fragmented data into actionable insights that can anticipate customer needs, drive revenue growth, and foster long-term loyalty. This is a unique opportunity for Digital Leaders who are ready to transform their customer engagement strategy and unlock the full potential of their data.

Belgium 22-10-25 Invitation Only Physical english

The End of the Firewall

Enterprises are questioning whether private networks and stacked firewalls are still worthwhile investments. A newer approach operates on the open internet with Zero Trust, eliminates perimeter complexity, and reframes cybersecurity as a business performance metric for boards and audit committees. This is a closed-door, peer discussion, not a lecture. We’ll examine the promise and its pitfalls: Are the promised savings significant, or are they too good to be true? What risks do you introduce? How does this collide with your installed base, legacy OT, entrenched processes and team competencies, and how do you overcome that without breaking operations or credibility with the board? Two senior leaders from global companies will spark the dialogue with lived experience: Kurt De Ruwe, CIO AkzoNobel Frank Bolata, CIO Syensqo

October 21, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

AI in Practice ; What it really takes to move from pilot to production

November 4, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

From Backlog to Value ; Prioritising what matters when everything feels urgent

You’ve got a roadmap, a backlog, and a lot of pressure. Every team wants their feature. Every stakeholder claims urgency. And your developers? They just want to deliver something meaningful. But how do you prioritise in a way that serves the business, and keeps the team sane? If your backlog keeps growing and your outcomes stay flat, this session helps you turn intent into value, without losing control.

November 18, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

Business Process Driven Architecture ; Designing systems that follow how your organisation actually works

Too often, architecture is drawn top-down, neat boxes, elegant flows, and little connection to the way teams really work. But what if we flipped it? What if our systems evolved from the actual processes, pains, and needs that drive the business? If you’re tired of systems that look good on slides but frustrate in practice, this session will ground the conversation where value is created, at the process level.

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Canva’s AI-powered Magic Studio used 5 billion times and counting.

Canva is a visual communication platform, enjoyed by more than 175 million people monthly to make presentations, videos, documents, websites, social media graphics and more. The combination of Canva's easy-to-use interface, extensive libraries and time-saving tools allows anyone to create visually appealing content.

Pioneering a new creative process with AI

Canva believes that AI can transform and accelerate the creative process, making design more intuitive and faster for all skill levels. To quickly put AI in its users hands, Canva tapped OpenAI as the foundational model for developing several of the tools for its AI suite, Magic Studio.

Canva aimed to make Magic Studio a unified creative suite that consolidates the best AI technology available into a single platform. While Canva has leveraged AI in its product for years, integrating generative AI tools was a delicate challenge because it required adding more capabilities without complicating the product. After all, Canva’s reputation is based on providing a simple way to produce high-quality content, even for non-professional designers.

Magic Studio had to ensure that various modalities—text, image, video—could work together effectively without overwhelming the user. OpenAI’s GPT-4 excels at incorporating multimodalities into a single workflow, making it possible for Canva to deliver on advanced AI product options while maintaining an intuitive user experience.

“Providing powerful and safe AI technology is critical to Canva’s ability to further the world of design. OpenAI has empowered us to supercharge Canva’s AI vision at speed,” says Danny Wu, Head of AI Products at Canva.

Building Magic Studio, an integrated AI suite

Using the creative power of GPT-4 to power several of the tools within Magic Studio(opens in a new window):

Magic Write(opens in a new window) is an AI writing tool powered by OpenAI's API. In addition to generating text in response to a prompt, Magic Write is optimized to support every step of the writing process, including outlining, generating paragraphs, rewriting, paraphrasing, grammar checking, and summarizing. Users across languages and content types have written over 10 billion words using Magic Write.
Magic Design(opens in a new window), Canva’s design generation tool, pairs OpenAI’s API with Canva’s own AI design engine and library of over 100 million assets and templates. To generate presentations, social media posts, and videos, users simply enter a prompt for what they want to create.
Magic Switch(opens in a new window) converts one design into countless other formats at the click of a button. Canva leverages OpenAI’s API and vision technology to help parse and understand the content designs, from whiteboards to presentations. Magic Switch can summarize, translate, rearrange, or even convert it to another format like an email song lyrics. All the user has to do is describe what they want, such as “convert this poster to a presentation in French” or “make this document horizontal.” And OpenAIs GPT-4 model supports more than 100 languages for instant translation.

Magic Design pairs OpenAI’s API with Canva’s own AI design engine and library of over 100 million assets and templates.

Canva Magic Swith UI overlayed on an abstract expressionist digital painting in hues of blue and purple.

Magic Switch converts one design into countless other formats at the click of a button.

Creativity through collaboration

Canva’s in-house AI development team knew it could go further and faster through collaboration directly with OpenAI. They wanted to ensure they were building AI tools that adhere to the trust and safety guidance of customers while opening doors for innovation.

OpenAI’s robust safety practices and controls, augmented by collaboration between each platform’s respective Trust and Safety teams, make Canva confident in deploying safe and responsible AI. “We have deep respect for the mission of OpenAI, and its charter,” Wu says.

Canva’s tight partnership with OpenAI extends beyond Magic Studio. A native DALL-E app(opens in a new window) makes it extremely simple to generate high-quality images right in Canva. Or if you’re in ChatGPT, the Canva GPT(opens in a new window) makes generating visual assets as easy as having a conversation about what you want to create. This custom GPT has proven to be a strong source of new user acquisition for Canva.

More progress coming

To date, people worldwide have used Canva’s AI products more than 5 billion times.

Back in 2018, Canva began imagining Magic Studio as something that only technology in the “far far future” would allow. Advancements by Canva and OpenAI have made this a reality much sooner than expected. Yet for all they’ve accomplished so far, Wu believes that in terms of the possibilities for AI design generation, “we’re only 1% of the way there.”

Technologies

OpenAI's GPT-4

CIONET Business Circles

Healthcare Circle

Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?

Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.

Les Rencontres

Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !

Female Leadership Circle

CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.