Ground Truth: AI for Business Summit 2026 will bring more than 50 experts to the University of Wisconsin–Madison on April 16 and April 17 for two days of actionable conversations about artificial intelligence. Hosted by the AI Hub for Business at the Wisconsin School of Business, the summit will explore AI’s impact on business strategy, productivity, and leadership.
We spoke with Matt Seitz, executive director of the AI Hub for Business, about why this summit matters now and what participants can expect to take away.
WSB: What inspired the creation of Ground Truth, and why launch it now?
MS: There’s a lot of hype around AI right now. Every week brings sweeping predictions about the future, and we’re not dismissing that. But Ground Truth is about what AI means for business and what leaders can actually do with it.
The mission of the AI Hub for Business is to meet the moment for WSB stakeholders, and the summit will give them a chance to hear from leaders and engage with each other in a focused, meaningful way.
WSB: Who is the summit designed for, and what kinds of sessions will they find?
MS: It is designed with industry professionals and alumni in mind, but everyone is welcome—faculty, students, and community members.
Our Executive Advisory Board has been integral to building the program that balances industry insights with WSB research. We’ll have keynotes from Karen Sauder of Google, Ramayya Krishnan of Carnegie Mellon, and Kristen Berman of Irrational Labs, along with leaders from Kimberly-Clark, Exact Sciences, Bain, Walmart, Medtronic and more. Our UW–Madison partners will be participating and presenting as well, including the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences and faculty working with the Wisconsin Research, Innovation and Scholarly Excellence-Artificial Intelligence (RISE-AI).
We also created a student panel because they’re our next generation of leaders, customers, and industry hires. We felt it was important to hear from them during the summit as well.
WSB: You’ve said participants will “leave with one idea you can use on Monday.” What does that mean in practice?
MS: That’s right. Again, we don’t dismiss the hype, but what we’re trying to achieve is the answer to “Hey, how do you use this stuff?” For example, attendees will learn frameworks for prioritizing AI projects and hear how companies like theirs ran and scaled a successful pilot. Practical, not theoretical. We want people to head back to work with something they can act on immediately.
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