Towards an agentic AI future for the UPU

Uniquement en anglais

Organized by the Universal Postal Union's (UPU) Knowledge Centre & Think Tank and the Postal Technology Centre, this webinar is the first session of the UPU Innovation Webinar Series. It continues the dialogue launched at the 4th UPU Innovation Challenge held in Cologne and Ghaziabad in May 2026, exploring the opportunities, challenges and governance considerations of agentic AI for the postal sector.
 

• Time: 12:30–13:30 CEST

• ​Featured speaker: Edgar Barroso, PhD, Founder and CEO of Horizons Architecture

• Format: Online via Zoom with live Q&A

• Register now here

Uniquement en anglais

What changes when software begins to reason, decide and act?

This session explores a human-machine perspective on agentic artificial intelligence (AI) for postal services and the authorities that shape them.

Agentic AI represents a shift from systems that respond to instructions to systems capable of reasoning, planning, taking action and learning in pursuit of defined objectives. Working alongside people and other systems, agentic AI can coordinate tasks, adapt to changing conditions and support decision-making in real time.

For the postal sector, the key question is not what AI can do independently, but how it can enhance a global human network comprising more than four million postal employees worldwide. As postal operators, regulators and governments explore the implications of this technology, it is essential to consider where human judgement remains indispensable and where autonomous capabilities can create additional value.


Featured speaker:
 

• Edgar Barroso, PhD, Founder and CEO of Horizons Architecture

Barroso holds a PhD from Harvard University and works at the intersection of music theory and complex adaptive systems. He is also a professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey's School of Government and Public Transformation. In 2023, he founded Horizons Architecture to design human-machine collective intelligence – many specialized agents orchestrated toward a shared goal, with ethics and human judgement above all.

His work spans government, public institutions and culture around one consistent question: how do people and machines think best together?

More of Barroso's work can be explored at Horizons Architecture.


What the session will cover:

Participants will explore:
 

• The agentic turn: What agentic AI actually is and how it differs from automation and chatbots. Software that sets its own sub-goals, takes action and learns from the result.

• ​Collective intelligence, not replacement: Edgar Barroso’s central idea that people remain the brains and AI extends their reach. The aim is better, faster decisions made together – not humans removed from the loop.

• Seeing it work live: A short live demonstration of an agentic system in action, because orchestration is far easier to show than to describe.

• Promise and pitfalls: For operators, regulators and ministries, the promise of sharper evidence and faster decisions, balanced against the risks of getting agentic AI wrong and the cost of waiting too long to engage.

Who should attend?

This session is intended for postal operators, regulators, ministries and other public authorities, as well as academic and technology partners. No technical background is required.


What you will take away:
 

• A clear view of the shift: What agentic AI is, how it differs from automation, and why the human-machine partnership is the point.

• A way to think about design: Agents as an orchestrated ensemble, with governance, transparency and human judgement built in from the start.

• Questions worth carrying home: Where your organization might begin, what to ask of any agentic system, and where the postal sector could take this next.

Register now here.