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

AI Con

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

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

A two-day pass costs $1,995. Five-day access, including two days of tutorials and an AI leadership summit, is available for $3,345.

AI Summit London

The AI Summit will hold its 10th annual event this year. It will take place in London from June 10-11, 2026.

The most basic pass costs just £149 (around $200) plus tax. That provides access to the Headliners Stage, additional expo stages, entry to the exhibition and limited use of the event app.

Delegate passes and London Tech Week passes are also available, as well as special rates for solution provider delegates or verified members of the technical AI community (data scientists, ML engineers etc). The full VIP package comes with access to a ton of specialized stages, including AI Cyber Security, Creative AI, Industrial AI, and Data Excellence.

The conference will be broken into five tracks: Finance, Data Excellence, Industrial AI, Beyond AI at Scale, and Next Generation. There will be speakers from the BBC, Barclays, Skin+Me, Sony, Deliveroo and more. 

For those based elsewhere, the AI Summit has a number of satellite events. It comes to Las Vegas in August and Australia in September, before its second flagship event in New York in December.

Databricks Data + AI Summit

June is rapidly shaping up to be the 2026 AI conference season. The Databricks Data + AI Summit will be 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 are all speaking, and are sure to offer interesting perspectives.

And there will plenty of external experts too. Sessions will be 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. 

General admission tickets cost $1,895 from now until the event. However, you can also buy a keynote and expo only pass for just $195.

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. 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. The official agenda is only released a week before the conference, but the overall focus will be on how to show up in AI search.

Tickets are available for $900 each, dropping to $500 if you're buying three or more tickets. Every attendee will get a "goodie bag" worth $25,000+, including free credits, GEO tools, and professional audits.

If you’re interested in GEO, then also 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 check in for any potential promotions.

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 Early Bird discount until the end of May, down from $3,195 to $1,995 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).

An Early Bird rate of $795 is available until June 1.That increases to $1,695 from June until mid-August, at which point last-chance pricing of $1,895 comes into effect.

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 for €699 (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. The Europe conference earlier in the year featured speakers from Meta, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and Databricks.

Tickets will go on sale soon. 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 $1,599. 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 $2,099. That will cost $2,599 on the door.

Generative AI Week

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

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 $999 (a promotional rate until June 5), or a "solution provider" pass for $2,999. 

Virtual AI Conferences

Museum AI Summit

As I mentioned earlier, AI conferences can be very general or very specific. This one is designed especially for helping museums to embrace AI.

As such, the Museum AI Summit clearly won't be for everyone. But if this happens to be your niche, you can attend virtually from May 27-28.

Tickets cost £130 (around $170). That includes access to all 16 livestream presentations, plus the chance to ask questions of expert speakers, including representatives from the MIT Museum, Natural History Museum, Microsoft, and Getty.

AI Con

I listed AI Con earlier. But it deserves a mention in the virtual section as well, because it is a truly hybrid conference.

The location is listed as Seattle + online. Taking place from June 7-12, 2026, the sessions are designed to accommodate virtual attendees as much as those in Washington.

Hundreds will attend in Seattle, with thousands present online. AI leadership, ethics, governance, and productivity tools are all on the agenda.

Databricks Data + AI Summit

As with AI Con, the Databricks summit is jointly listed as in-person and online, with its location described as San Francisco + virtual. A major perk is that virtual attendance is free of charge.

You'll get livestreams of keynotes and select sessions from June 15-18. And you'll also be able to access them on-demand after the event. 

However, you will miss out on the training courses and certification offered at the physical conference. You'll also miss the AI Expo. 

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.