At this year’s THE PLAYERS Championship, the world’s best golfers—as well as thousands of fans—descended upon the famed TPC Sawgrass for one of the most important events on the PGA Tour®. But the week wasn’t just about golf. It also served as a gathering of top technology and business leaders exploring how AI, networks, cybersecurity, and partnerships are transforming the future of work, sport, and customer experience. 

Held alongside the tournament, the Comcast Business PLAYERS Executive Forum provided our guests with expert perspective on a range of topics including the evolution of enterprise networks to the rise of agentic AI. Check out some of the soundbites from the discussions—and register for the follow-on virtual executive forum on April 15. 

Advanced Networks are the Foundation of Innovation

As enterprises accelerate digital transformation, the demands on their networks are growing exponentially. Elad Nafshi, EVP and Chief Network Officer at Comcast, explained how performance expectations have changed—and how the network is evolving to meet them.

“Business demands continue to grow, and that’s all driven by new services that customers are demanding, whether that’s back-up or streaming or communications,” Nafshi said. “The network needs to carry not just greater peaks, but a lot more tonnage. We’ve seen an over 140% increase in the tonnage carried on the network for businesses that connect to us, and that continues to grow every day.”

But it’s not just about faster speeds and more bandwidth. It’s also about networks that have intelligence directly built in. Bob Victor, SVP, Customer Solutions at Comcast Business, noted that AI is an integral part of the transformation: 

“It’s all about taking the work out of running networks, operating networks, fixing networks, and making sure there's little or no downtime,” said Victor. “It needs to be very elastic in putting up and putting down services, adding capacity, all of those things need to be automated. And at the scale that we and our customers operate, there's no way you can do that without AI.”

Agentic AI: From Copilots to Enterprise Game-Changers

AI’s transformative impact on business and technology was a theme running through each and every session of the forum. It’s clear that AI is already transforming business models—and its next evolution is agentic.

Bret Taylor, Chair of the Board at OpenAI and former Salesforce co-CEO, described it this way:

“AI is going to be like an Iron Man suit for every single person in this room and the kids growing up with it. Kids today are going to grow up with an incredibly smart co-pilot for their lives, just like the last generation of kids grew up with the Internet and smartphones.”

Taylor spoke to the growing role of agents—autonomous AI-powered systems that can act on behalf of users or organizations. As AI continues to mature, Taylor said, agents will be more and more capable of acting autonomously, dramatically expanding productivity while creating new challenges around oversight and ethics.

AI, Cybersecurity, and the Need for Guardrails

AI’s growing prevalence creates new opportunities in the cybersecurity world—and not just for malicious actors. On both sides, hackers as well as cybersecurity teams are racing to leverage AI for their ends—and better understand how the other side is using the technology. At Comcast, a key focus is balancing security and innovation, said Noopur Davis, EVP and Chief Information Security and Product Privacy Officer at Comcast.

“As a CISO, you have to worry about: How do we unleash all the positivity that comes with this—all of the creativity and new business cases—and yet do it in a safe way for the company, for our customers, and for our employees?” 

Rick Rioboli, Chief Technology Officer at Comcast, cautioned that the rise of agentic AI also calls for the establishment of a new set of identity management and machine-to-machine communication guidelines:

“I think of agents as just sort of a natural extension of microservices. We're going to have all these agents that are making decisions for us and taking actions for us, and we're going to have to come up with this rule set—the same way we did for microservices—of how these things interact with each other. I think we are going to begin to see a lot of development on agent frameworks.”

Sports Tech: Game the Green and the Future of Fan Engagement

Sports are becoming one of the most dynamic arenas for AI innovation. As customer expectations change, there’s a new push to elevate experiences both inside and outside of the stadium. Fraser Stirling, Global Chief Product Officer at Comcast, added:

“Imagine the idea of your couch being a better seat than anywhere in the stadium. That is a fascinating concept to unlock. How do you unlock that excitement? What technologies do you need to do that?”

In fact, THE PLAYERS Championship itself was a lesson in next-generation fan experience. Working in partnership, the PGA TOUR and Comcast brought to life a gamified, AI-powered, real-time experience called Game the Green to life at the famous 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

“It's an interactive way to experience the 17th hole—you get to predict the shot for every golfer that approaches 17,” said Scott Cohen, Executive Director, Strategic Wireless Solutions, Comcast Business. “We use machine learning, shot data, and predictive modeling to visualize the ball’s likely outcome—and if you’re on-site, you can actually play along and compete on a leaderboard. You’re watching it live and you’re watching it in an interactive experience.”

The forum also explored how sports viewing is becoming personalized through AI-curated highlight reels, real-time camera switching, and even instant merchandise offerings triggered by live events. Jenna Kurath, VP of Startup Partnerships at Comcast NBCUniversal and head of SportsTech, described how startup founders are brought into co-development processes with partners like the PGA TOUR and other pro sports leagues:

“We work shoulder-to-shoulder with our league partners to define the problem, validate the need, and build a product that’s commercially viable,” Kurath said. “It’s not about a shiny demo. It’s about building for scale.”