Top AI Conferences in 2026: In-Person and Virtual Events

Between general AI conferences and more industry-specific events, there are literally hundreds of opportunities to hear from genuine leaders within the field. These events can give you up-to-date tips on how to use AI to gain a real advantage over competitors.

Not only that, but AI conferences present valuable networking opportunities. You might meet a perfect hire for a job opening or hear from someone who is putting AI to work in a way that would be invaluable for your business.

With virtual and in-person events available around the world, there has never been a better time to attend an AI conference.

Here are some of the top events I’m looking out for in 2026.

Upcoming In-Person AI Conferences

GEO Conference

Most of the conferences on my list are general AI conferences. But there are also plenty of industry-specific AI events.

If you check out my list of SEO conferences and marketing conferences, the vast majority have AI tracks. But the GEO Conference is an example of a dedicated AI SEO event.

GEO stands for generative engine optimization. Vishvak Murahari, the Princeton researcher who coined the term was among last year's speakers, as was the CISO of Anthropic.

This year's event will be held in Washington, DC, on June 18. It will feature speakers from AT&T, Expedia, and the Gemini team at Google, while Murahari will also be speaking again.

Every attendee will get a "goodie bag" worth $25,000+, including free credits, GEO tools, and professional audits. However, with the event so close, tickets have now sold out.

But don't worry. If you’re interested in GEO, then you can check out the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. This lets you track your visibility, share of voice, perception, and citations across major LLMs like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity.

AI World Congress

The AI World Congress is packed full of AI industry heavyweights. It’s taking place in London from June 23-24.

Speakers include Tejas Joshi, the CTO of Data Platform and AI at Oracle, and Akis Papageorgiou, Chief AI Architect at IBM. There will also be representatives from Microsoft, McKinsey, and more.

Keynote topics include scaling AI with MLOps, autonomous AI, and using AI for faster application-building. There will also be panels, sessions, and networking breaks.

A 2-day pass costs £2,295 (a little over $3,000) at full price. But tickets are available for as little as £495 as long as you are not buying on the door.

Ai4 Conference

Ai4 is being held in Las Vegas from August 4-6. 12,000 attendees and 1,000 speakers are expected, making this one of the biggest AI conferences in the world.

The conference has been running since 2018, so it has fairly long-standing AI credentials. And it's able to attract some big-ticket speakers.

The "Godfather of AI" (Geoffrey Hinton) and "Godmother of AI" (Fei-Fei Li) will both be in attendance in 2026, as will Andrew Ng (founder of DeepLearning.AI). There will also be speakers from Ford, NBC, AstraZeneca and more.

That justifies a premium price point. But there's a good discount until July 2, down from $3,195 to $2,295 for a standard pass.

DBT Summit

You may see the DBT Summit referred to elsewhere as Coalesce. But it has undergone a rebrand, and the new-look event will take place from September 15-18 in Las Vegas.

It's dedicated to AI and data analytics. Previous speakers include Ashley Kramer, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAI (and you can view her keynote from last year on YouTube).

This year, there will be talks from Gupta Bishal (Lead Data Engineer at Docusign), Nadine Bruxel (Senior Director at Nordstrom), and Madison Kohls (Data Scientist at Figma). Plenty of interal speakers from DBT Labs are also on the slate.

The Early Bird rate has expired, but you can still secure a standard ticket for $1,695 .That increases to a "last-chance" price of $1,895 from August 18.

World Summit AI

World Summit AI is holding its 10th edition this year. The long-standing AI conference will take place in Amsterdam from October 7-8.

More than 10,000 attendees are expected, along with 300+ speakers and 100+ exhibitors. The conference caters for just about anyone with a professional interest in AI: it will be split into 10 tracks, including Adopt AI, Build AI, AI Labs, and AI Media.

Speakers include Zico Kolter from Carnegie Mellon University, who is on the board of OpenAI. There will also be talks from C-suite employees of Tencent, AMD, The Home Depot, Sony, and more.

Tickets are currently available from €899 (approximately $817) plus tax. VIP tickets cost €1,999 (~$2,337).

AI Engineer

AI Engineer is actually a series of AI conferences, focused on the technical side of AI. It comes to New York from October 12-14.

The event gives a platform to "engineers who ship": practical talks from cutting-edge practitioners. And the theme will be "where AI engineering meets Wall Street", with a focus on finance-specific AI.

The Europe conference earlier in the year featured speakers from Meta, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and Databricks. The lineup for this year's event will be confirmed in due course.

Applications for tickets will open soon, and you can sign up to be notified. In the meantime, you can watch last year's NYC AI Engineer Summit online for free.

MAICON

The Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference, or MAICON, will be held in Cleveland from October 13-15. As the name suggests, it is dedicated to AI in marketing.

A lineup of speakers is expected shortly. Last year, there were representatives from Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, and Meta. 

You can buy recordings of the 2025 edition. Meanwhile, tickets for 2026 are already on sale.

Main conference passes start at $1,699. Prices increase incrementally as the event gets nearer, with a final on-site price of $2,099.

An all-access pass is currently available for $2,199. That will cost $2,599 on the door.

Agentic AI Week

Agentic AI Week is geared toward business leaders who want actionable tips on how to implement and scale agentic AI. It’s being held from November 4-5, with the location (within the US) still to be finalized. 

Until recently, the event was being marketed as Generative AI Week. The name change says a lot about where much of the AI hype and excitement is currently focused!

Last year, it was held in Austin. There were speakers from NASA, OpenAI, and Coca-Cola, with event tracks including AI agents, data governance, and adoption.

Some of the Generative AI Week 2025 line-up.

This year's agenda will be released closer to the time. But you can already purchase a bronze "in-house practitioner" pass for $1,599, or a "solution provider" pass for $2,999. 

AI Summit New York

The AI Summit New York will be held from December 9-10. It is taking place at the Javits Center.

Its agenda will be set by an expert chapter of advisers drawn from the likes of IBM, Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Vanguard. So far, details are yet to be confirmed.

However, we do know some of the speakers. They include the Chief Digitial Information Officer & Global Vice President at Unilever, and the Acting Chief AI Officer & Acting Chief Data Officer at the
United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Ticket sales are not yet open. But you can sign up to register your interest.

This is the second AI Summit flagship event of the year, following a London date in June. There will also be satellite events in Las Vegas (August) and Melbourne (September).

Virtual AI Conferences

D&A Live Summer

D&A stands for data and analytics, so you can bet that AI is heavily on the agenda in 2026. This fully-online one-day event includes 20+ speakers, and is expected to attract 500+ attendees. 

This year's speakers are drawn from the likes of Bank of America, Alteryx, Marriott, and the University of North Georgia. Keynotes include "Data Is the New Application Layer: Re-Architecting the Enterprise for AI".

Attendance is free, but you need to register for a ticket. 

Nodes 2026

Nodes is a fully online conference dedicated to "engineering better intelligence". It's a free 24-hour event set to take place on November 12. 

Live sessions and talks will take place around the clock, so there's something for every time zone. While it's not entirely dedicated to artificial intelligence, AI engineering is high on the agenda, and featured speakers hold roles including AI Product Manager and AI Research Engineer.

To get an idea of what to expect, you can view talks from last year. This one, on Agentic AI for Enterprise Knowledge Graph Management, illustrates just how granular and applied the talks can be, targeted squarely at practitioners.

2027 AI Conferences to Watch

By this point in the year, some great AI conferences have already been and gone. So here's a selection of some of the AI events that I'm looking out for again in 2027:

AI Con

AI Con took place in Seattle from June 7-12, 2026. There were more than 50 talks, with a mix of keynotes, sessions, and tutorials.

LLMs, AIOps and MLOps, AI application development, and data strategy were all on the agenda. The program of speakers featured representatives from Microsoft, Google, and GM.

Databricks Data + AI Summit

June was very much AI conference season in 2026. The Databricks Data + AI Summit was held in San Francisco from June 15-18.

Databricks relies on in-house speakers for some of its biggest hitters. The CEO, Chief Technologist, Chief Architect, and Director of Product Management all spoke, offering some interesting perspectives.

There were external experts too. Sessions were hosted by representatives from the likes of Adidas, Toyota, Capital One, and 7-Eleven, with tracks including Analytics and BI, Application Development, AI and Agents, and Governance and Security. 

Details for 2027 will be confirmed in due course. One thing to note in advance is that the Databricks conferences are usually also set up for virtual attendance, making it a great flexible option.

Get Ahead of the Game with AI Conferences

AI is changing the way we work. Just about every industry is feeling the impact of this transformative technology, which continues to innovate and improve at a rapid rate.

Original Exploding Topics research found that 83% of AI users are now using AI tools at work. That’s despite the fact that only 42.7% of workplaces are actively encouraging AI.

In fact, more than 1 in 4 workplace AI users are funding their own tools. If you are a business decision maker, your workers are already adopting AI.

The only question is whether your organization is going to facilitate and support that usage in order to maximize efficiency gains.

It can be difficult to stay on the cutting edge of such a fast-moving topic. That’s where AI conferences can be hugely valuable, whether you’re a business leader, researcher, or simply an enthusiast.

Be sure to check back in, because I keep this page updated regularly. So this is the best place to find the latest events, prices, and ticket availability for the best conferences over the next 12 months.

And remember, pairing AI conferences with Semrush’s powerful AI toolkit is the best way to get ahead.