inControl Summit 2026 Panel - "Are We Afraid When the Tiger Roars?"

We opened inControl Summit 2026 with a question that doesn't have a clean answer: Is AI a threat to everything we've built in this industry, or the tool that helps us protect it?
The panel that followed — featuring Prof. Stefan Luppold, Berry Medendorp, Jens Mayer, and Kai Opitz — didn't try to wrap it up neatly. Instead, it did something rarer: it named the fears out loud. The worry that automation erodes craft. That efficiency comes at the cost of the human moments that make events worth attending. That the skills you've spent a career developing might be worth less tomorrow than they are today.
These aren't fringe concerns — they're the ones experienced professionals carry into every conversation about AI but rarely say in the room. This panel said them in the room. Academic rigour, agency pragmatism, and zero pretense — it's one of the most grounded discussions we've had on the inControl stage, and it sets the tone for everything the Summit built toward.