On 11 May 2026, the opening day of AUVSI XPONENTIAL, about thirty-five pioneers from twenty-one organisations met for NestGen Forum: the Retreat’s frameworks in one invite-only day. Real deployments, the economics of scale and AI as the lever, in two tracks, under Chatham House rules.
The Retreat was depth. The Forum was reach.
In March 2026 twenty-one pioneers spent five days at the NestGen Retreat in Jaipur, sharing deployment playbooks, ROI frameworks and regulatory strategies off the record. Many more wanted to be in that room and could not make the trip.
So the Retreat’s frameworks came to them: one focused day in Detroit, alongside the industry’s biggest show. A leader and an operator from each organisation, peer-driven, substance over spectacle. FlytBase hosted; the content was built for the industry.
The morning set the picture for everyone. Then leaders and operators split, each to the questions of their own working day, and came back together for the long view.
Together
Registration and coffee
Welcome
The day’s questions, and how it would run.
Root system and nervous system
FlytBase
Two transformations at once: years of invisible groundwork finally breaking through, and what is forming on top of it, layer by layer.
The drone industry: evolution and challenges
FlytBase
Where the industry has been and where it is now. Getting started is one problem; scaling is another.
How enterprises are deploying docks and realising ROI
FlytBase, Terabase, SQM, Walross
Patterns from the most advanced programmes, and three of them told first-hand: daily solar inspections on a one-pilot-to-five-docks model, doubled inspection frequency across Chile’s iodine mines, and citywide monitoring in Mexico.
Coffee
For CEOs, programme directors and heads of innovation: the business case, the partners, the strategy.
The shift from drone missions to outcomes
FlytBase
Describe the outcome, and AI organises the work underneath.
The separation of concerns
FlytBase
Programmes that depend on rare hybrid experts do not scale. Each role stays in its lane; a job interface translates.
Dock as infrastructure: the multi-use unlock
FlytBase
Scaling is not more docks. It is more departments using the docks you already have.
Lunch and networking
A blended security and drone-as-a-service model
Titan Protection
The setup, the people and the economics of a model built for scale.
ROI for operations at scale
FlytBase
ROI models that match operational reality and hold up as deployments grow.
Ingredients for scale in a physical AI world
FlytBase
Round table
ROC partnerships, data sovereignty, hardware and BVLOS: what is working.
Coffee
For operators, ROC managers, field teams and pilots in command: the flights, the docks, the airspace.
The operator’s hour
FlytBase
The next stage of a programme is hard to picture without seeing it done. That is what the next hours were for.
The 24/7 ROC: how Titan built a blended security programme
Titan Protection
Drones and guards on one operational picture, across five deployments, and a site that has been quiet for nearly a year.
One pilot, many docks: what one-to-many takes
Falcon Unmanned, for Terabase
The waiver, the remote ROC, and running solar sites at a ratio of one pilot to many drones.
One dock, one refinery, new discoveries
Marathon Petroleum, with Bronto USA
A single dock for one inspection that kept finding new problems to solve, and the fully automated loop it is heading for.
Break
Inside the Flink Factory: from field problems to live apps
FlytBase
Apps built from operators’ requests and shipped in a day or two, and what is being built next.
The next-generation ROC
FlytBase
The one-to-many dashboard, asset records and jobs: three layers for one pilot to many docks.
Together again
Closing vision: from operating model to nervous system
FlytBase
The day was the operating model. The close was the long view: drones are one input, and the nervous system is what forms when every sensor connects.
The Forum closes