All part of building what’s next
Innovation at Liberty IT is about exploring what’s possible while staying focused on people, trust and impact. Our teams use tech, creativity and collaboration to solve real problems and help shape what comes next.
This year, Liberty IT Forward Live brought 650 of our people from Belfast, Dublin and Galway together at ICC Belfast for a full day of learning, fresh perspectives and connection. It was a chance for teams across the business to explore how AI is reshaping the way we build, deliver and lead, and the skills we need to navigate that change together.
Under the theme ‘AI-First Engineering: Rewiring How We Build, Deliver, and Lead’, speakers from Liberty IT and the wider technology industry covered everything from agentic AI and everyday AI adoption to the culture that helps high-performing teams thrive.
Our Managing Director and Global Engineering Capability Lead, Tony Marron, opened the day by reflecting on the role Liberty IT plays in driving transformation across Liberty Mutual, and how our engineering expertise helps turn advances in AI into real business value. He also spoke about why days like this matter: bringing our people together to learn, challenge their thinking and share the expertise that helps us lead through change.
A day built around AI-first engineering
Our Managing Director and Global Engineering Capability Lead, Tony Marron, opened the day by reflecting on the role Liberty IT plays in driving transformation across Liberty Mutual, and how our engineering expertise helps turn advances in AI into real business value. He also spoke about why days like this matter: bringing our people together to learn, challenge their thinking and share the expertise that helps us lead through change.
Liberty Mutual’s Global Chief Information Officer, Monica Caldas, followed with the opening keynote. Her message was clear: as AI takes on more of the work, engineering excellence, human judgement and critical thinking matter more than ever in turning its potential into solutions people can trust.
The morning continued with external speaker Rob Shocks on harness engineering, followed by a look at what changes day to day once AI agents become part of the delivery process, and the skills teams need to work well alongside them. People and culture were part of the conversation from the start, and the morning closed with a panel that brought together culture leaders and teams from across the business.
For the rest of the day, Forward Live moved across four stages, with talks and lightning sessions organised around three themes: Agentic & AI Transformation, Everyday AI-Enabled Engineering, and Culture & High-Performing Teams. That meant everyone could follow the conversations most relevant to their own work.
Agentic AI, moving from idea to everyday use
Everyday AI adoption was one of the main threads of the day. One session examined what it takes for AI to move from an interesting experiment to a tool people come back to every day, a reminder that real adoption is measured by how useful AI is in the work people actually do.
Turning agentic AI into something teams can rely on was another major theme of the day. QuantumBlack explored how agents can learn and support continuous improvement, while other sessions looked at how agentic delivery scales from an early concept to something managed and dependable. Teams also shared specific use cases, what it takes to make agentic delivery work in practice, and how AI built by business teams themselves can move into live, reliable use.
Keeping people at the centre
Several sessions picked up on Monica’s point about human judgement, exploring how to keep a human in the loop when systems are built around autonomous agents. They also looked at the practical side of responsible human oversight and AI governance, including how to keep an agent’s actions within clear bounds
Another session put it simply: just because AI can be an agent doesn’t mean it should be. Amid all the momentum around agentic AI, it was a useful reminder that knowing where an agent isn’t the right fit matters just as much as knowing where it is.
Throughout the afternoon, lightning talks focused on the practical questions that come with using AI at scale, from quality and trust to cost. Sessions looked at the often-overlooked cost of AI token consumption in production, the need to build quality in from the start, how document health supports knowledge management, and how agentic approaches are aiding fraud investigation.
Bringing people and culture back into focus
The day closed as it began: with people.
After the afternoon break, external speaker Dr Lollie Mancey explored the cultural and organisational changes shaping the future of work, and how they sit alongside the day’s technical themes.
Tony and our Senior Leadership Team then shared their reflections on the day, and we recognised this year’s Culture Stars: people nominated by their peers for bringing the six mindsets of our Culture Playbook to life in their everyday work. A social evening rounded things off, with time for teams to relax and connect.
What Forward Live says about how Liberty IT builds
From agentic AI and everyday adoption to quality, cost, fraud investigation and culture, Forward Live 2026 covered a lot of ground under one theme: how AI-first engineering is changing the way we build, deliver and lead.
What came through in almost every session was the part our people play. AI works at this scale because of the engineering excellence, knowledge and judgement our teams bring to it, and because we keep making time for days like this, when 650 of us can learn from each other in the same room. Investing in that learning is what helps us shape how AI is used, lead through change and keep moving forward together.
