Manchester · Accenture, No. 2 Circle Square
Hosted by Keith Griggs FCA
Learn how to move AI beyond the proof of concept at this technical Manchester AI meetup on 30 September 2026, hosted at Accenture in Manchester. Manchester AI is relaunching its in-person programme with two practical talks for people building, operating and leading production AI systems. Expect candid lessons from real projects rather than hype or slideware, with a focus on the organisational and technical work required to make AI dependable after the demo. The event takes place from 5:45pm to 8:30pm at Accenture, No. 2 Circle Square, 1 Symphony Park. It is designed for data scientists, machine learning engineers, data leaders and other AI practitioners responsible for putting systems into production. The format combines two technical presentations, audience Q&A and plenty of time to meet fellow builders over food and drinks. There will be no livestream. The talks Raji Bhamidipati, Senior AI Product Manager at Finova presents The POC That Never Ships: Baselines, Stop Criteria, and What Production Actually Costs. With around half of GenAI projects abandoned after proof of concept, Raji will examine decisions teams need to make before writing code. The session covers establishing a measurable baseline, agreeing criteria for stopping an unviable project and preparing for the realities that follow a successful demo. Topics include evaluation, audit trails, cost per decision and the operational handover to the people responsible for keeping a system running. The lessons draw on real work in a regulated environment. Tomisin Alex-Aina, AI/LLM Solutions Architect at the Accenture Centre for Advanced AI presents When the Agent Clicks the Wrong Thing: A Practical Framework for Debugging, Testing and Designing LLM Agent Decisions. This talk tackles the non-deterministic nature of AI agents and the resulting challenges around testing, debugging and trust. Tomisin will share a practical framework for understanding why an agent made a particular decision, making enterprise agent systems more observable and testable, and designing them to produce the intended behaviour more consistently. Evening schedule - 5:45pm: Doors, food, drinks and networking - 6:15pm: Welcome - 6:20pm: First talk and Q&A - 7:05pm: Second talk and Q&A - 7:50pm: Open networking - 8:30pm: Close… Register for this event
Sponsors: Accenture
