Artificial intelligence no longer sits in a separate window on the screen. It selects products, offers solutions, analyzes risk, enters financial processes, becomes both a tool for cyber defense and an attack.
The next question for companies is what happens when AI starts to participate in business management, consumer choice and decisions about where money goes – while simultaneously changing the rules of cyber defense and arming attackers with new tools.
With answers to these challenges come the speakers of the DIGITAL TRENDS 2026 forum, which will be held on November 5 at the Sofia Event Center.
One of the largest technology events in the region brings together for another year international experts, investors and business leaders, whose experience goes through global companies, including dentsu, WPP, iProspect, Accenture, Google Cloud, Rakuten Viber, Meta, eBay, IBM, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, SiteGround, VMware, Honeywell.
The forum is traditionally hosted by bTV journalist Svetoslav Ivanov, who welcomes the speakers and the audience for morning coffee and conversations as early as 9:00 a.m. The official start of DIGITAL TRENDS 2026 is at 10:00 a.m.
Here are the topics with which the leading speakers of Digital Trends will take the stage 2026:
SPACE IS ALREADY A BUSINESS LABORATORY
Japanese entrepreneur Kei Shimada comes to Sofia with the lecture “DORITOS IN ORBIT: How to lead a market before it exists“.
Shimada will show how global brands are using the space environment for real product experiments, why data collected outside of Earth conditions cannot simply be “made up“ from AI and how companies can start gaining experience even before a new market is apparent.
He is the founder of Narravity and is responsible for the global business strategy of Innovative Space Carrier, which is working on a reusable spacecraft and the ambition to make travel between two points on Earth possible in under 60 minutes.
His professional path goes through IBM Japan and dentsu, and his career is connected to the development of products and services that are firsts in their market, region or industry.
WHO DECIDES WHO YOU ARE? BRAND IDENTITY AND HUMAN TASTE IN THE ERA OF AI AGENTS
Tia Castaño is Global President of Innovation at dentsu. In her talk, she will look at a world where AI agents are already searching, comparing, booking and buying on our behalf.
The impact of this is far from limited to online shopping. When some of the choices are made before a person has even seen all the options, brands need to know how to be recognizable and desirable to both people and the machines that filter their decisions.
Castagno has many years of experience at the intersection of technology, marketing, media and culture. Before her current role at dentsu, she was the global managing director of iProspect, and spent a decade at WPP and MediaCom. Her professional career also includes Maker Studios – one of the pioneers in the digital content creator business.
AI ENTERS THE CONVERSATION OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
Gilad Ayalon, Senior Director of Product Management at Rakuten Viber, is responsible for developing messaging, chats, groups, AI features and fraud protection on the platform.
On the Digital Trends stage, he will show how artificial intelligence is already entering the features people use every day – from summarizing unread messages and reply suggestions to translating and processing images.
On a platform with hundreds of millions of users, the test for AI is simple: be useful enough to stick around, and unobtrusive enough not to get in the way of people.
Before Viber, Ayalon led product teams at Similarweb, Meta, and eBay.
26 MONTHS BEHIND ENEMY LINES: NORTH KOREA'S HACKING MACHINE FROM THE INSIDE?
For more than two years, Vangelis Stikas – cybersecurity researcher and co-founder and CTO of kumio.ai – has been monitoring hacking operations linked to North Korea without the people on the other side knowing he is monitoring them. At Digital Trends 2026, he will share how a technical investigation led him to the infrastructure, mistakes, and victims of a campaign that affected over 2,000 organizations in 70 countries.
WHERE IS CAPITAL LOOKING FOR THE NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH?
David Hug, partner and co-founder of the investment fund REALR, has a straightforward thesis: the biggest problems of our time could be the biggest business opportunities of the next generation.
In his talk at Digital Trends 2026, he will explore healthcare, food, energy, and critical infrastructure as territories for a new generation of technology companies.
David Hoog has over 15 years of venture capital experience, having backed two unicorns and one IPO. His investments include GetYourGuide, About You, Foodspring, Faceshift, N-Dream and MOVU. Companies from his portfolio have been acquired by Apple, Mars and Qualcomm.
The conversation about capital continues with Daniel Tomov, co-founder and partner at Eleven Ventures, where he leads investments in the fintech sector, Georgi Mitov, co-founder and managing partner at BrightCap Ventures, and Georgi Randelov, deputy director of “Business Development“ at GATE Institute.
Together with David Hoog, they will seek answers to three big questions:
What does a company need to have to attract capital today? Is the map of European technology centers changing? What else is Bulgaria missing to turn good technologies and strong teams into global companies?
WHEN AI MEETS AI
The more useful AI becomes for business, the more access and autonomy we give it. And the more important the question of who is in control becomes.
This conversation during Digital Trends 2026 features Stoyan Popov, Director of “Information Security“ at Amusnet, Lora Ivanova, Manager of “Key Accounts“ at Google Cloud, and Petar Kirkov, Co-Founder of Stihia.ai. The moderator is Iliyana Zaharieva, Director of “Corporate Communications“ at A1 Bulgaria.
The panel will enter the new race between AI as a tool for protection and AI as a weapon for attack – who has the upper hand, how much autonomy can we safely give AI agents, and when does cybersecurity go from a mandatory expense to a real business advantage.
BANKING IN THE ERA OF AI
Technological transformation is already changing one of the most regulated industries - finance.
Rumen Radushev, Chief Digital Transformation Officer and member of the Board of Directors of PostBank, will talk about how AI is changing banking processes, customer experience, and growth opportunities.
With over 20 years of experience in the financial sector, Radushev is among the people behind the bank's large-scale technological transformation - from digital channels and customer experience to automation, AI, and internal process optimization.
IMPLEMENTING AI IS NO LONGER ENOUGH. HOW IS THE WAY OF WORKING ITSELF CHANGING?
Companies are already investing massively in AI. But how can these investments be turned into real business value? Petar Tornev, Managing Director „Technologies“ in Accenture Bulgaria will show how companies are rethinking processes, developing their people to work with AI and turning technology into business value at scale.
HOW TO BUILD A GLOBAL BUSINESS FROM BULGARIA
After the talks about individual technologies, the program turns to the people who build and manage companies with them.
In the special series, the forum host Svetoslav Ivanov will talk to entrepreneurs and business leaders about the decisions behind international growth, culture, management and the next phase of business.
Among the interlocutors in the series are Tenko Nikolov, Managing Director of the Bulgarian technology company SiteGround, which has grown into an independent global business with its own software products and millions of customers around the world, as well as Radoslav Koshkov, who is part of the regional management of Schneider Electric.
WHEN THE MACHINE SEES MORE MOVES: WHAT'S LEFT FOR HUMAN JUDGMENT?
The Digital Trends 2026 finale is with Beloslava Krasteva – women's grandmaster and European team champion with Bulgaria.
In professional chess, machine analysis has long been part of the preparation. The computer can calculate more options and faster, but on the board, the player must decide what to trust, when to take a risk and which move makes sense.
The same question is increasingly facing businesses as AI enters the analysis and decisions. The conversation with Beloslava will be about how to use the power of the machine without losing strategic judgment, intuition and the ability to make decisions under pressure.
Digital Trends traditionally brings together over 500 representatives of the business, technology sector, entrepreneurial and investment community – people who come not only to hear what's next, but to exchange experiences, ideas and contacts with others who are already working on change.
This year too, the program will combine lectures and discussion panels with enough time for off-stage meetings in the informal areas of the Sofia Event Center. Reserve your place for the forum via Eventim.bg.