Rebecca Healey

AI’s potential in trading depends on one thing above all: clean, consistent, and connected data. Yet for many desks, fragmented sources, legacy systems, and inconsistent tagging remain a major barrier to adoption. In this panel, buy-side leaders join platforms, vendors, and brokers to explore how firms are building the foundations for AI-ready trading and investment workflows.

From setting common standards and integrating broker, market, and internal datasets, to embedding governance and quality controls, panellists will share practical strategies for breaking down silos and improving data quality across the ecosystem. What role can partners play in accelerating this transformation- and how can a unified data layer deliver better pre-trade insight, execution quality measurement, and workflow automation?

AI in trading is shifting from static analytics to adaptive, goal-driven systems that can plan, reason, and act. For technology leaders, the opportunity lies in building the data pipelines, interoperability layers, and governance frameworks that allow these agents to operate safely at scale. This panel will explore how buy-side firms are integrating AI into core workflows, the infrastructure required to move from pilots to production, and what it means for future skills, system design, and operating models.

Fragmentation, new liquidity protocols, and shifting venue structures are reshaping execution workflows- and forcing desks to rethink how platforms and processes are built. With OMS and EMS systems at the heart of trading architecture, firms are seeking ways to streamline connectivity, reduce silos, and embed greater consistency across asset classes. This panel brings together buy-side and platform perspectives to explore how architecture can adapt to deliver efficiency and resilience, while balancing the drive for modernisation with the realities of legacy systems. Expect candid discussion on the push for simplification, the role of automation and direct connectivity, and how business requirements on the desk are defining the next generation of multi-asset trading.

As trading technology evolves, desks face a fundamental question: consolidate around a single monolithic platform, or embrace a modular, API-driven ecosystem? Proponents of monolithic platforms argue that a unified system reduces integration risk, simplifies governance, and ensures stability at scale. Advocates of modular design counter that flexibility, innovation, and cross-asset agility are only possible when firms can compose and adapt best-in-class solutions. This Oxford-style debate will weigh the trade-offs between efficiency and resilience, exploring vendor dependency, cost of ownership, interoperability, and the ability to adapt to future market structure changes. Is the future of trading infrastructure a tightly integrated fortress- or a composable, plug-and-play network?