AI Conf 2026: Artificial Intelligence in Business Divides Decision Makers and Developers
For Italian companies, artificial intelligence has now become a daily operational issue, and the ways it is changing internal balances are often less predictable than one might think. This was highlighted at AI Conf, the technical conference organized by Improove that took place on Wednesday, June 24, in Milan at the Talent Garden Calabiana, now in its seventh edition. The founder of AI Conf, Andrea Saltarello, 51, who describes himself as a 'born technician,' shared this insight. His passion for technology ignited as a child when the arrival of a Commodore VIC 20 at home made him leap over childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut or pilot, prompting him to insistently ask his father for a robot.
Today, in addition to teaching Data Science and AI at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, Saltarello is the founder of Improove, which with its over 26,500 members presents itself as the largest tech community in Italy on a single platform.
A 'Virtuous Selfishness' to Grow Italy's Tech Scene
Saltarello's approach to technology is guided by a strong human component. He defines his ethical commitment as a sort of 'virtuous selfishness': being a technician, he seeks to do good for his community, starting from the premise that if everyone contributes to improving the environment to which they belong, a chain reaction will trigger that will lead to the growth of the entire Italian tech community.
This is also why he is committed to ensuring that artificial intelligence remains a topic for more than just a few. Besides organizing a free monthly AI Meetup for the past two years, Saltarello advocates for respect for workers in the sector. On the Improove platform, he launched a free recruiting service for companies, tying it to two strict rules: the obligation to indicate the RAL (salary transparency) and the use of inclusive language. His rejection of dehumanizing corporate jargon is emblematic: he categorically forbids referring to candidates as 'resources,' reminding everyone that 'lead is a resource, copper is a resource; we are talking about a person.'
The Democratization of Training: The "Break-Even" Model
Improove's business model also reflects this philosophy, as it is structured to achieve break-even rather than generate margin. Physical events are not created to produce direct profit: by selling tickets at nearly cost, losses are offset by sponsors. The ultimate goal is to finance the true essence of the project, which is an on-demand service that, for an accessible fee of 120 euros a year, provides access to over 1200 technical videos and advanced courses, making high-level training affordable.
The Program: From Supercomputing to Global Use Cases
This inclusive approach has not prevented achieving a high technical level. The event agenda unfolded across four specific paths: Data Science (Generative AI, data engineering, and Machine Learning), AI Technologies (Agentic AI, MLOps, and vibe coding), practical Use Cases, and an Executive track reserved for decision-makers.
Among the presentations, there was an unusual comparison in the Italian landscape: the leaders of major national computing centers shared the same stage. The event indeed gathered Giulia Gasparini (Country Manager of AWS), Sanzio Bassini (Director of Supercomputing at Cineca, home of the supercomputer Leonardo), and Alessandra Fidanzi (Head of Data, AI & HPC at Eni, the area overseeing the supercomputer HPC6).
The scale of this comparison is reflected in the numbers of the represented machines. According to data cited during the event, Leonardo, hosted by Cineca, is the second largest supercomputer in Italy, ranking around the tenth position in the world, while HPC6 by Eni is the most powerful system in the country and ranks sixth globally, while AWS brings the experience of the largest cloud provider on the planet. Saltarello emphasized that it has never happened before to see the top three computing powers in Italy gathered in the same event, joking with a fan's flair: it’s a result that cannot even be improved because, in a championship, the one who is first in the standings has no position above them.
The lineup featured hardware and cloud giants, such as NVIDIA (with Andrea Fumagalli) and Google Cloud (with Daryoush Goljahani), alongside some international operational figures, including Mohamed Mortadha Manai, AI Engineer at Netflix, and Cristian Schuszter, Staff Software Engineer at CERN. There was also a strong emphasis on real implementation in Italian business processes, with contributions from the CIOs and innovation leaders from Sky Italia, Fineco, Alpitour, and Automobili Lamborghini. For those just starting out, there was an accessible track dedicated to 'the fundamentals of generative AI,' useful for explaining basic concepts like tokens.
Survey Data: Two Corporate Worlds at Opposites
However, the most interesting picture that emerged during the interview pertains to the state of AI adoption in Italy. By cross-referencing the results of a comprehensive corporate survey with the actual consumption habits of content on the Improove platform, a marked distance between top management and operational departments has come to light. This data concerns the audience of Improove, which is strongly oriented toward development, rather than the entire Italian industrial fabric.
It’s worth explaining how these numbers were generated, because it is the method that makes them interesting. Improove started with its subscriber base, which includes 169 CTOs, 93 CIOs, 117 Heads of departments, and 465 developers, and based the survey on that audience, which was later expanded to include additional samples: companies in system integration and consulting like Reply and Engineering, end clients like Sky, and the contribution of AUSED, the network of heads of corporate information systems. The value that gives substance to the comparison emerged afterward: the responses stated in the survey were set alongside the actual behaviors—i.e., the content that those same figures are truly consuming on the platform, where the over 1,300 videos and editorial materials are labeled by topic and professional profile of reference. To bolster the profiling, there are also the event attendance records: in the last year, 1,811 unique individuals participated, each with their job title declared and updated from time to time, allowing verification of whether what they declare to want to learn matches what they actually watch.
On the management front, the market is distinctly oriented towards Agentic Artificial Intelligence: three out of four companies claim to already use it, operating within a duopoly dominated by Claude and ChatGPT, with Google Gemini lagging far behind. Interest in local open-weight models occupies a niche between 10% and 20%. This push comes entirely from the top management: for CEOs, CTOs, Directors, and Founders, Agentic AI is the number one study priority.
Conversely, developers experience a different reality. For developers, Agentic AI does not even make it into the 'Top 5' areas of interest. The most consumed content by coders in Italy is the traditional .NET framework, followed by artificial intelligence (only in a generic sense) and frontend development. The reason is practical: programmers must 'survive' the day-to-day work and invest their time in studying what is needed to maintain and evolve existing software rather than on cutting-edge technologies when they are not strictly required.
Dreams in the Drawer
Regarding the future, Saltarello holds together a professional desire and a personal one. On the work front, the freedom of his business model allows him to aim high: his 'forbidden dream' for a future edition of AI Conf is to bring names like Andrej Karpathy or Yann LeCun to Italy. On a personal level, however, despite the results achieved, the desire remains to continue to 'do something good' and, above all, to spend more time with the people he cares about.