AI in Practice – No Hype, No Fluff. Pie & AI Comes to Wrocław

Over 70 attendees, four speakers, four talks on real-world AI applications, and long conversations over pizza. On March 26, Wrocław hosted its first-ever Pie & AI – the global meetup series run under the banner of DeepLearning.AI. The event was organised by Sii Poland in partnership with Microsoft and the Wroclaw AI Team (WAIT) community.

Pie & AI – a global community, local conversations

Pie & AI is a format created by DeepLearning.AI – the educational platform founded by Andrew Ng, one of the most recognised figures in the world of artificial intelligence. The idea is straightforward: bring together people who work with AI every day and give them a space to talk – over pizza, in a relaxed setting, without the corporate polish.

Pie & AI meetups take place in cities around the world – from San Francisco, through London and Singapore, to Wrocław. Each one is organised locally by ambassadors who understand the needs of their community. This means every edition has its own character, but they all share a common principle: short, substantive talks, open discussion, and nothing but substance.

The Wrocław edition was initiated by Sii Poland, which serves as an ambassador of the format in Poland. The goal was to create a space for an honest conversation about AI – free from marketing narratives and overblown enthusiasm. The event was organised together with Microsoft, which provided both expertise and a speaker, and the local Wroclaw AI Team community, which supports the growth of the AI ecosystem in the region.

“Pie & AI is a format that fits perfectly with what the Polish AI community needs – an honest conversation between practitioners, without slides full of generalities. As the ambassador of this format in Poland, I wanted to create a space where people can openly discuss what works and what doesn’t.” – Łukasz Biegański, Pie & AI Ambassador in Poland, Sii Poland

What the speakers talked about

The programme featured four presentations, each exploring a different dimension of AI in practice – from organisational transformation, through building agent-based systems, to security challenges and automation for frontline workers.

“The Truth Between Prompts” – Łukasz Biegański, Sii Poland

Łukasz opened the substantive part of the meetup by asking why so many companies are disappointed with their AI deployments – despite growing interest and ever-wider access to tools. Step by step, he walked the audience through the most common mistakes on the road to transformation: from a lack of strategy and uncontrolled use of AI by employees, to treating artificial intelligence as a ready-made product rather than a capability that needs to be consciously built.

His core message was clear: the success of an AI deployment depends above all on people and processes, and far less on the technology itself. The talk set the tone for the entire event – practical, free of illusions, and focused on what actually works.

“From Chatbots to Autonomy” – Agnieszka Niezgoda, Microsoft

Agnieszka Niezgoda from Microsoft shifted the conversation to technical ground, presenting the full spectrum of possibilities – from simple chatbots to fully autonomous multi-agent systems. Attendees could see what building AI agents looks like within the Azure ecosystem and what tools Microsoft provides at different levels of complexity.

The live demos made a particularly strong impression – a working multi-agent system and a voice bot showed that AI agents are no longer theory but concrete, functioning solutions. The presentation gave attendees a practical roadmap – from ready-made tools to advanced customisations – helping them determine which solution to reach for depending on their needs.

Current Challenges in Synthetic Speech Detection – Dr Piotr Kawa, Resemble AI / Wrocław University of Science and Technology

Piotr Kawa, a deep learning researcher at Resemble AI and an assistant professor at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, took the audience into a world where distinguishing real voices from synthetic ones is becoming increasingly difficult. He presented the current state of speech generation technology, then showed what defence methods look like – and why what works in the lab often fails in real-world conditions.

His talk made the audience realise the scale of the challenge: audio deepfakes are evolving faster than the methods to detect them, and the consequences reach far beyond technology – from financial security to disinformation. Piotr also discussed his own research contribution to the field, including work on one of the largest multilingual datasets for combating synthetic speech.

AI for Frontline – Łukasz Szydłowski, TD SYNNEX

Łukasz Szydłowski closed the presentations with a topic rarely seen at technology conferences – applying AI to support frontline workers. Speaking about people working in the field, in logistics, and in customer service, he showed that automation doesn’t have to be reserved for the office world.

He presented a custom architecture in which specialised AI agents support workers in real time – from coaching and troubleshooting to automatic ticket creation and call summaries. He also didn’t shy away from hard truths, addressing limitations such as hallucinations, transcription quality, and the risk of over-automation.

Conversations as valuable as the talks

Beyond the presentations, the meetup’s great strength lay in the conversations that took place between and after the talks. In the corridors, people discussed deployments that didn’t work out, client expectations that don’t match reality, and how to separate marketing noise from genuine capability.

For many attendees, this candour was the greatest value of the event. In a world where tech conferences often feel like product showcases, the Pie & AI format offers something different – a space where you can say “this doesn’t work” just as freely as “this was a breakthrough.”

Substance over spectacle

What set the Wrocław edition of Pie & AI apart was the quality and depth of the talks. Each speaker presented complex topics in a clear and accessible way, while not shying away from hard questions about the limitations of current technologies. There were no promises without substance – just concrete insights backed by real experience.

“Hats off to the speakers – Agnieszka, Piotr, Łukasz, and Łukasz – for delivering such a high level of substance and presenting complex topics in a clear, engaging way. A huge thank you to all 70+ guests for coming and for the inspiring conversations between sessions.” – Marcin Mosiolek, Head of AI at Sii Poland

The power of partnership

The Wrocław edition of Pie & AI would not have been possible without the involvement of several partners. Microsoft provided not only expertise but also a speaker, giving attendees the perspective of one of the biggest players in the AI market. The Wroclaw AI Team (WAIT) community, which works to build the local AI ecosystem, supported promotion and outreach to the right audience. The whole event was held under the patronage of DeepLearning.AI, making the Wrocław meetup part of a global network of Pie & AI events.

The Sii Poland team also played a key role, handling both the logistics and the programme. The event was held at Sii’s Wrocław office, giving it an intimate, practical feel – a far cry from anonymous conference halls.

Next stop: Kraków?

The success of the Wrocław edition confirms that the AI community in Poland needs spaces for honest, substantive exchange. Not more lectures about how “AI will change everything,” but concrete conversations about what works, what doesn’t, and why.

We are already planning the next edition of Pie & AI. Next stop? All signs point to Kraków. The format will stay the same – short, substantive talks, open discussion, and of course, pizza.