How can AI improve the availability of IT Systems?

Wednesday 5th August 2026, 6:30 pm.

Speaker: Gill Ringland, co-chair, Availability Working Group of the BCS IT Leaders Forum.

Venue: Computershare Limited, Edinburgh House, 4 North St. Andrew Street, Edinburgh EH2 1HJ

Refreshments and networking from 6:00 pm.

This event is free of charge and open to all, though registration is required - you may not get past venue security if you do not register in advance.

Registration link coming soon.

Synopsis

This presentation is based on the work of the Availability Working Group of the BCS IT Leaders Forum, and the work presented on AI in resilience was led by Working Group member Sarah Greasley. It covers:

What reduces the availability of IT system
Impact of IT failures
Principles of resilience engineering
Planning and architecture – Role of AI
Anticipation and maintenance – Role of AI
Establishing strong emergency plans – Role of AI
AIOps – some data
Principles for safe AI adoption in resilience
Q&A

About the speaker

Gill Ringland is a Life Fellow of the BCS, an ICL Fellow Emeritus, an Emeritus Fellow of SAMI Consulting, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science. Her degrees are in Physics. Her career has included leading roles in IT in the US and Europe, and strategy/foresight with a world-wide client base as CEO of SAMI Consulting. She has served on UK Government and EU advisory groups in both IT and Foresight, and as a Trustee of several charities. She is Co-Chair of the Availability Working Group of the BCS and Secretary of the IT Leaders Forum.

She wrote the best seller Scenario Planning: Managing for the Future while responsible for strategy at ICL. She has over 200 publications. Her 12th book, with Patricia Lustig, is The Possibility Wheel. The 13th, with (Professor) Ed Steinmueller is Resilience of Services: reducing the impact of IT failures, based on the work of the Availability Working Group of the BCS IT Leaders Forum. She publishes thought pieces and blogs through the BCS, Long Finance, the apf and Radix, often with Patricia Lustig. A Handbook on Engineering Resilience and a book for computer science students and young IT Professionals, Making digital services reliable, are in preparation.