Polish Tech | Venture Cafe: Agentic AI Revolution | PolishTech Events

What this evening is about

From Trustworthy AI and EU AI Act considerations to production failures, governance gaps and system-design trade-offs, the evening focuses on what really happens when AI leaves the lab and enters complex environments — industrial, financial, consumer and investment.

The format is unfiltered: practitioners, no whitepapers, no polished case studies. Real lessons from the front lines of building agentic systems.

Themes on the table

From pilot to production. Agentic deployments inside large industrial and corporate organisations: integration with legacy systems, governance gaps, change management, and the politics of autonomy in environments where mistakes have physical consequences.
Customer-facing agents in regulated environments. Banking, marketplaces and consumer platforms — how to design, deploy and govern agents that act on behalf of millions of users when failure modes are not "a bad search result" but a missed payment or a disputed transaction.
System design beyond model quality. Multi-agent coordination, state management across long-running workflows, and how to retain control in environments that are non-deterministic by nature.
Engineering maturity. Framework selection, orchestration trade-offs, context management, evaluation strategy and cost economics — what breaks in production, and what experienced teams would do differently.
Trustworthy AI and EU AI Act. Continuous compliance, auditability and the operating model required to ship agentic systems inside Europe's regulatory perimeter.
Live pitching from agentic-AI startups. A curated selection of European founders building at the frontier of autonomous systems take the stage in front of investors and operators.

Programme

The evening runs across two parallel tracks from 17:00 and 19:00, allowing attendees to choose between deep operator and engineering conversations on the main stage and a focused customer-facing / startup-pitching programme in the second room.

Main stage

17:00 — Doors open · Welcome drinks · Networking

17:15 – 18:00 — Panel: From Pilot to Production Moderated by Arash Javanmard-Ghareshiran (Selonor), with Atita Arora, Malte Pietsch (CTO deepset), Matthew Honnibal (founder, Explosion AI). This panel brings together practitioners who have taken agentic AI past the demo stage and into the messy reality of legacy systems systems, fragmented data landscapes, and organizations that were never designed to move fast. Panelists will share the friction they didn't anticipate (governance gaps and data silos, change management and the politics of deploying autonomous systems in environments where mistakes have physical consequences and more). If you're trying to understand what actually separates a successful rollout from a stalled pilot, this is the conversation to be in.

18:10 – 18:50 — Building agentic AI that works when it counts. Moderated by Josua Ziegler (CEO, punktum), with Frederik Hamann (Senior Strategy Lead, Taktile), Hasna Najmi (AI Solution Architect Lead, Merantix Momentum), Michal Kopczyński (AI and ML Architect, DAC.digital), and Felix Gerberding (Technical Account Manager, AWS). Building an agent is easy. Building one that works reliably in production, where it touches real customers, real money, or real decisions, is a different problem entirely. This panel brings together architects, builders, and deployers who've done it: what design choices actually matter, where systems break in ways you didn't anticipate, and what it means to build AI that earns enough trust to be given real autonomy.

19:00 – 19:20 — Agentic AI in the Wild: what actually changes when agents leave the lab

With Marek Tatara, PhD (Chief Scientific Officer, DAC.digital), For years, the AI conversation centred on models: how capable they are, how fast they improve, how much they cost. That conversation is now incomplete. It has shifted from model quality to system design: how you coordinate multiple agents with distinct roles, how you manage state across long-running workflows, how you maintain control when the environment is non-deterministic by nature. This talk draws on real production deployments to map the new hard problems and to frame what it genuinely takes to move from a working prototype to a system that holds up under real-world load.

19:20 – 20:00 — Pitch Competition: Agentic AI Startups A curated selection of European agentic-AI founders take the stage with short pitches in front of investors, operators and the room. Audience + jury vote.

Second room (parallel from 19:00)

19:00 – 19:30 — Panel: AI, Capital & Innovation - Unlocking the Polish-German Growth Opportunity What happens when two fast-growing innovation ecosystems come together around AI, investment, and cross-border collaboration?

This panel brings together founders, investors, ecosystem leaders, and policy representatives to explore the growing opportunities between Poland and Germany — from startup growth and venture capital to deep tech, cybersecurity, and international expansion.

Expect an open conversation on how innovation ecosystems can work together to unlock new partnerships, accelerate scaling opportunities, and strengthen the future of European tech.

With Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin, CyCommSec, betacluser Ventures, and Vinci S.A.

Close

20:00 — Pitch winner announced · Open networking & informal conversations

Programme is subject to refinement; exact running order may be adjusted.

Speakers

MARCIN KRÓL — Minister-Counsellor, Head of the Economic Division, Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin

I leverage over 25 years of experience to advance Poland’s strategic position within European diplomatic relations, economic policy, and multilateral cooperation. I am particularly interested in economic diplomacy and digital transformation, with a focus on ensuring that Poland’s voice and interests are effectively represented and integrated within the EU’s evolving governance frameworks. Passionate about the intersection of diplomacy and innovation, I aim to bridge political insight with emerging technologies to foster sustainable international partnerships. LinkedIn

Malte Pietsch — CTO & Co-Founder, deepset

Co-founded deepset and built Haystack, the open-source framework that has become a European standard for production RAG and agentic systems. Recently led the deepset–Mozilla partnership on a fully open, self-hostable agentic AI stack. LinkedIn ›

Florian Steger — Managing Partner, betacluster Ventures

Founder & Managing Partner at betacluster Ventures, an early-stage fund backing the next generation of smart-data founders from CEE. I’ve spent 25+ years building and scaling tech companies — three as a founder (mobile software, eHealth, cybersecurity) and many more as an operator, investor, and board member. As a VC, I’ve invested in 50+ early-stage startups across Europe, the US and Asia. My track record includes successes like Blinkist (acquired by Go1), Mr. Spex (IPO), Flexperto (acquired by RGI), Texel (acquired by DAZN), ciValue (acquired by Nielsen), and Apryl (acquired by Progyny). LinkedIn

Frederik Hamann — Senior Strategy Lead, Financial Services, Taktile

Drives strategy at Taktile, the Agentic Decision Platform letting financial institutions deploy reliable AI agents for KYC/KYB, underwriting and fraud. Operates at the intersection of product, compliance and agent design in heavily regulated environments. LinkedIn ›

Marek S. Tatara, PhD — Chief Scientific Officer, DAC.digital

Leads DAC.digital's Deep Tech practice and is Assistant Professor in Automatic Control & Robotics at Gdańsk University of Technology. Takes ML, computer vision and embedded AI research from paper to industrial production for European clients. LinkedIn ›

Emre Öcal — Co-Founder & CEO, LexTrace

Building LexTrace, an autonomous EU AI Act compliance platform powered by agents — turning Act readiness from a checklist exercise into continuous, audit-ready operation for AI product teams across Europe. LinkedIn › · lextrace.ai ›

Michał Kopczyński — AI Models Engineering, DAC.digital

Senior AI/ML Engineer at DAC.digital, shaping agentic AI, computer-vision and machine-learning solutions for clients across healthcare and remote patient monitoring — and rapidly prototyping product demos for new agentic use cases. Also Lecturer in AI and Python at Gdańsk University of Technology and Visiting Researcher at Sapienza Università di Roma, bridging applied prototype building with academic research. LinkedIn ›

Arash Javanmard-Ghareshiran — Selonor (speaker & panel moderator)

At Selonor, a Berlin-based agentic-AI platform for investment professionals that turns fragmented document repositories into connected intelligence for finance, M&A and credit teams. Moderates the From Pilot to Production panel and brings an academic-meets-industry perspective on agent design. LinkedIn › · Google Scholar ›

Hasna Najmi — Senior AI Solutions Architect, Merantix Momentum

Translates enterprise problems into shipped ML/AI systems at Merantix Momentum, Berlin's leading applied-AI venture studio. Active voice on agentic AI in production — recent panelist at Merantix AI Campus's AI Breakfast on Agentic AI and AI in Action: Image Forensics. Joins the engineering panel. LinkedIn ›

Felix Gerberding — Technical Account Manager, AWS

Technical Account Manager at AWS supporting customers through architecture, infrastructure and the rollout of generative and agentic AI services on AWS — connected to AWS's Berlin GenAI Loft programmes. Joins the engineering panel. LinkedIn ›

Michał Suchocki — CEO and COFOUNDER, CyCommSec

We navigate the complexities of modern cybersecurity threats and regulations. Our approach combines continuous offensive testing—designed to uncover hidden vulnerabilities—with seamless compliance integration and unwavering vigilance.

Bartosz Pakulski — Investment Analyst, Vinci S.A.

Investment professional with a proven track record in capital markets, venture capital and private equity. Experienced in supporting companies through scaling, expansion, and exit stages. Focused on growth-stage opportunities across sectors.

Pitch Competition: Agentic AI Startups

We're opening the stage to a curated selection of European founders building at the frontier of agentic AI — autonomous systems doing real work in production, not slide-deck demos.

Format

5 selected startups
3-minute pitch each
Audience + jury vote
Winner announced at 20:00, at the close of the evening

Winner's prize

A demo slot at the next Polish Tech | Night — our flagship annual event in front of hundreds of founders, investors and corporate-innovation leaders
Additional prizes to be announced

Who should apply

Pre-seed to Series A startups whose core product is an agentic system shipping in production or in advanced pilot. Open to founders from across Europe and beyond.

To apply: hello@polishtech.org — subject line Agentic AI Pitch · 28 May. Application window closes Friday, 22 May 2026.

In partnership with

This edition of Polish Tech | Venture Café is hosted in partnership with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin, the Polish Investment & Trade Agency (PAIH) and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) — Poland's leading institutions building bridges between Polish business, public capital and international markets.

The evening also coincides with the inauguration of the Polish Business Club at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin earlier the same day. Members of the newly established Club — senior Polish entrepreneurs, executives and investors active on the German market — are invited to join the Agentic AI Revolution gathering in the evening, creating a rare convergence between Polish C-level business leadership and the European frontier of applied AI.

Event partners:

Who should attend

Founders, CTOs, AI engineers and researchers building agentic systems in production. Investors and corporate-innovation leaders evaluating where autonomous AI is creating durable value. Senior operators in regulated industries — finance, manufacturing, healthcare, public sector — facing real EU AI Act and governance decisions.

Practical information

Date: Thursday, 28 May 2026

Time: 17:00 – 20:00 (doors at 17:00)

Venue: CIC Berlin, Lohmühlenstraße 65, 12435 Berlin (the former Agfa factory)

Language: English

Contact: hello@polishtech.org

Members of the Polish Business Club at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin: please refer to your separate invitation from the Embassy for joining instructions.

Polish Tech | Venture Cafe: Agentic AI Revolution

About this Event