VAM! Talks: Enterprise World Models & Modern AI ⭐

This event looks at emerging directions in AI, from how agents can learn and adapt to changing enterprise systems to how modern AI is challenging traditional ideas of machine intelligence. The talks will explore two perspectives: 🧠 Modern AI: We will explore creativity and unpredictability in LLMs, and the challenges they face when simulating other systems and processes. 🌐 Enterprise World Models: We will explore how AI agents can discover hidden business rules and maintain accurate world models as enterprise systems change. This session is for AI engineers, researchers, founders, product builders, data scientists, students, and anyone interested in current developments in AI. 🗓️ Program 5:30 PM – 5:50 PM 👋 Arrival & networking Doors Close at 5:45 PM 5:50 PM – 6:05 PM 🎙️ Issam Laradji | Self-Evolving AI Agents 6:10 PM – 6:50 PM 🧠 Peter West | Challenges for a Modern Vision of AI 6:50 PM – 7:00 PM ☕ Break 7:00 PM – 7:40 PM 🌐 Shambhavi Mishra | WorkflowShift 7:40 PM –7:55 PM 🤝 Closing & networking 🍽️ After 7:55 PM (Optional) – Head to Good Co. for food, drinks, and more networking 📍 965 Granville St, Vancouver, BC Timing is approximate and may shift slightly based on audience questions and discussion. ℹ️ Disclaimers 🫧 Feel free to bring your own food and water bottle. 💧 There is a water fountain at the venue. 🚗 Paid parking is available nearby, including EasyPark. 🐾 The venue is not pet-friendly (service animals welcome). 🚲 Bicycles are not permitted inside the building. ⏰ Doors close at 5:45 PM, so please arrive before then. 🏢 Before 5:45 PM, someone in the lobby can guide you to the event space on the 14th floor. 🎤 Speaker 1: Peter West Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia | Former Postdoc, Stanford HAI Peter West is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, broadly working on the capabilities and limits of LLMs. For example: the divergence of AI from human intuitions of intelligence, unpredictability and creativity in models, and studying LLMs with a non-interventional natural sciences lens. Peter completed his PhD at the University of Washington, Paul G School of Computer Science and Engineering. He completed a postdoc at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. His work has been recognized as best, outstanding, and spotlight papers in NLP and AI conferences. Talk: Challenges for a Modern Vision of AI While historical visions of AI have typically been cold, analytical, and robotic, AI in 2026 does not fit this mold. Instead, many of the pressing questions today have more to do with social intelligence, creativity, and generally capturing aspects that might be considered more human than machine. In this talk, I will walk through our recent work exploring these questions for today's large language models (LLMs). For instance, probing the extent to which LLMs can be creative or unpredictable, and characterizing the ongoing challenges for these models in simulating other systems or processes. 🎤 Speaker 2: Shambhavi Mishra PhD Student, ÉTS | Visiting Researcher, ServiceNow Research Shambhavi Mishra is a PhD student at ÉTS under Prof. Jose Dolz and Prof. Marco Pedersoli and a visiting researcher at ServiceNow Research's Foundation Models Lab. Her research focuses on Foundation Models for label-scarce learning, Model Reliability, Calibration and Adaptation, as well as Post training methods for LLMs. Talk: WorkflowShift Shambhavi will present WorkflowShift, a benchmark on a live ServiceNow environment that studies whether agents can discover hidden business rules through experimentation, build world models of enterprise dynamics, and keep those models accurate as the underlying rules change. 🎙️ Opening: Issam Laradji Adjunct Professor, UBC Opening: Self-Evolving AI Agents Issam will introduce self-evolving AI agents and recent approaches for enabling agents to improve and adapt over time. 🌲 About Vancouver AI Meetup (VAM!) is a community of researchers, engineers, founders,