Session Abstract:
The confluence of Generative AI and the IoT – or GenAIoT, continues to develop, affording many business and societal benefits. Such as increased efficiency and cost savings as AI can analyze data from IoT sensors to predict equipment failures and schedule maintenance proactively, minimizing downtime and maintenance costs. And, AI automated operations and decision-making, based on data analysis, optimizing processes across various industries.
To highlight the state of the art and the future outlook, Dr. Tom Bradicich, IoT Community Board Chair, will moderate a panel featuring the weekly IoT Coffee Talk Show, hosted by Leonard Lee, Founder & Executive Analyst, NeXt Curve. Expert panelists will discuss the state of the edge, IoT, and its convergence with advances in AI. Join us to hear real-world use cases, challenges, and opportunities in this high growth multi-billion dollar market.
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GenAIoT™—the fusion of Generative AI and AIoT—turns raw telemetry into instructions, copilots, and autonomous workflows. The opportunity is massive: multimodal models that “see” equipment, “read” maintenance logs, “chat” with SCADA historians, and “act” through policy-guarded agents. Yet value only appears when these capabilities are deployed where work happens: at the converged edge. This practitioner-driven panel unpacks the patterns that matter now: • RAG over time-series and engineering docs; digital twins as model context; agentic planning with safety envelopes.• Data pipelines that blend streaming + vector + graph; observability for models and processes (LLMOps/MLOps).
• Privacy-preserving learning (federated, synthetic data), security (IEC 62443/NIST), and auditability for regulated industries.
• Latency/Cost calculus—when to run on device, on-prem edge, or cloud; how to budget GPUs vs. outcomes.
• ROI you can defend: downtime avoided, energy saved, yield uplift, crew hours reclaimed. We’ll showcase real deployments across utilities, factories, clinics, and campuses; highlight “gotchas” (hallucination containment, grounding on messy sensors, change-control); and share a 3-step path to value: (1) frame a control-adjacent use case with clear guardrails, (2) stand up an edge copilot with human-in-the-loop, (3) harden into a governed, auditable closed loop.
Speakers:
Leonard Lee is the founder and managing director of neXt Curve, an independent research advisory firm based in San Diego, CA with the mission of helping TMT (Technology, Media & Telecommunications) industry pioneers explore and pursue opportunities forming at the intersection of transformative technology and industry trends. With over 30 years of experience as a management/technology consultant and industry analyst, Leonard has advised Fortune 500 organizations across various industries on emerging technologies, business and product strategy, and innovation. Leonard’s cross-domain research covers mobile computing and wireless infrastructure, enterprise computing and networking, AI infrastructure and data center, media and broadcast technologies, enterprise software and analytics, consumer and industrial IoT, cybersecurity and trust, and semiconductor technology. He is a former managing partner with Gartner Inc. and partner/principal at IBM, PwC, and EY.”
Rob Tiffany – As a Research Director at IDC, Rob is a cloud infrastructure analyst and strategist. He’s held executive leadership roles at Ericsson, Hitachi, and Microsoft and is a globally recognized pioneer and leader in IoT and Digital Twin technologies. As Vice President and Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson, he drove 5G connection management with the IoT Accelerator and participated in global M&A activities. As Chief Technology Officer at Hitachi, he received the Presidential “Product of the Year” award for designing the Lumada Industrial IoT platform which landed in Gartner’s “Leaders” Magic Quadrant. Spending most of his career at Microsoft, Rob was Director and Global Technology Lead for the Azure IoT cloud platform which also made it to Gartner’s “Leaders Quadrant.” Prior to Microsoft, he co-founded NetPerceptor developing one of the industry’s earliest Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platforms for smartphones. As a bestselling author and keynote speaker, Rob is a frequently sought-after source of insights globally. He’s been featured in Wired, Forbes, CIO, Fierce Wireless, Inc. Magazine, Dataconomy, Thinkers360, Onalytica, Mobile World Live, Techonomy, and SXSW.
Debbie Reynolds, “The Data Diva,” is a world-renowned Data Privacy technologist, thought-leader, and advisor to Multinational Corporations for handling global data privacy, an internationally published author, highly sought speaker, and top media presence about global data privacy, data protection topics. Advisor to Fortune 500 Companies for handling data privacy, cyber data breach response, and electronic evidence. 
2026
2026
2026