An Ancient City for a Discussion on the Future
It is no coincidence that the organizers chose Pompeii as the setting for the event. A city that has spanned two thousand years of history becomes the symbolic place to question how to guide this revolution today. The Summit's message is encapsulated in its very name: not to suffer artificial intelligence, but to guide it, keeping human intelligence at the center of the ethical, strategic, and cultural choices concerning its adoption. After the first edition, the 2026 event promises to be even larger: two full days, a capacity of up to 1,200 total attendees and over 10,000 users connected via streaming on LinkedIn on the event's unified channels, for a discussion that intertwines business, scientific research, and institutions.
«We are experiencing an exponential acceleration that escapes human comprehension; no one can predict with certainty what will happen or when: this is why the summit was born, a kind of intellectual call to arms. Artificial intelligence is becoming human, while humans are becoming increasingly artificial. I choose the opposite direction: as a techno-humanist, I see technology not as an end, but as a means to elevate the human being, to increase their awareness, autonomy, and capacity for self-realization», says the event founder Giovanni Sapere, an expert in artificial intelligence and augmented reality, editorial director of The Patent Magazine (a patents and inventions magazine) and creator of the C-NDA Protocol, a system for protecting ideas in the AI era.
Five Areas, Twenty Panels, One Common Thread
The program is structured around five major thematic areas, each dedicated to a field where AI is already changing the rules of the game. Soul – Creativity & Arts: artificial intelligence in visual arts and music, copyright, authenticity, and new creative professions; Work – Business & Professions: AI adoption in SMEs and large enterprises, process transformation, training, and new leadership; Governance – Society & Institutions: AI Act, democracy, information, public services, and ethics; Body – Science & Life: applications in medicine, diagnostics, scientific research, and biotechnologies; Matter – Industry & Security: manufacturing, logistics, energy, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure. Within these macro-areas, twenty panels will address specific topics, from legal tech to digital health, from industrial robotics to the fight against disinformation.
Who Takes the Stage
Over 40 speakers reflect the multidisciplinary vocation of the summit. One session is dedicated to the relationship between consciousness, mind, and new physics, featuring Federico Faggin, the Italian physicist who designed the world's first commercial microprocessor, now engaged in the scientific study of consciousness, along with Giuseppe Vitiello, Alioscia Hamma, Graziano Terenzi, Paolo Silvestrini, and Roberto Germano. Alongside them are Mauro Martino of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, an expert in AI art and data visualization, and Cosimo Accoto, philosopher of new engineering and research affiliate at MIT Boston. The world of technological enterprise will be represented by figures such as Alessandro Maresca (Microsoft), Arcangelo Di Balsamo (Google Cloud Italy), and Massimo Chiriatti (Lenovo), joined by Luca Tesauro, Founder & CEO of Giffoni Innovation Hub, while the institutional front will see, among others, Angelo Tofalo, former Undersecretary of State for Defense, and representatives of the Campania Region. Voices from the academic and legal worlds will also be present, such as Gianclaudio Malgieri (Leiden University), an expert in AI law and regulation, Giorgio Ventre, Scientific Director of the Apple Developer Academy in Naples, and Mirko Perano, associate professor at the Department of Business Sciences — Management & Innovation Systems of the University of Salerno, who coordinates the summit's scientific committee.
A Discussion Spanning Continents
Among the institutions represented are leading global research centers and universities, from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab to the International Neural Network Society, from Queensland University of Technology (Australia) to Leiden University (Netherlands) — a mix that demonstrates how the debate on “human-driven” artificial intelligence now interests scientific and institutional communities far beyond Italian borders. Alongside major Anglo-Saxon and European names, the program also brings voices from emerging countries in the AI landscape to Pompeii: Albania, Estonia, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan, represented by their own exponents, confirming the organizers' desire to build a truly global discussion, capable of systematizing diverse visions, regulations, and cultural sensitivities regarding the relationship between humans and machines. Not just a simple list of flags, but a concrete attempt to foster dialogue between very distant models of technological and economic development — from Gulf economies to small Baltic nations pioneering digitalization, to the manufacturing and technological hubs of the Far East.
A Project That Goes Beyond the Two Days
The summit does not end with the event itself. The organizers have announced the publication of a dedicated book, an editorial volume that will collect the speeches and contributions from the first two editions, with the aim of transforming the Pompeii debate into a stable reference document for discussion, in Italy and abroad, on human-driven artificial intelligence. Whether you are entrepreneurs grappling with AI adoption in your company, professionals curious about ethical and regulatory implications, or simply people interested in understanding where this transformation is taking us, the Human Driven AI Summit offers two days of direct discussion with those who design, regulate, and study artificial intelligence from very different perspectives.