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 of AI. 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

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 Waymo, NBC, AstraZeneca and more.

That justifies a premium price point. But there's a discount currently running, down from $3,195 to $2,595 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, also 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, Isomorphic Labs, Sony, and more.

Tickets are currently available from €1,099 (approximately $1,250) 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, with a call for speakers open until September 12.

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.

There will be speakers from Google, Motorola, Zapier, and the New York Times, among many others. One-time presidential hopeful Andrew Yang will also be speaking. 

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

Main conference passes start at $1,799. 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 $2,299, and will cost $2,599 on the door. There's also an additional tier that provides access to an exclusive CMOs Summit on the morning of October 13. 

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 in Atlanta. 

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.

The first batch of speakers for 2026 has now been confirmed. You'll have the chance to hear from Senior Agentic AI Data Scientists at Equifax, the Director of Agentic Commerce at Mastercard, and a Vanguard Product Architect. 

You can already purchase a silver "in-house practitioner" pass for $1,299, or a gold pass for $2,299. A "solution provider" pass is available for $3,099. 

AI World Congress

The AI World Congress is packed full of AI industry heavyweights. It will take place in London from November 25-26.

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 AI regulation, capital raising trends in AI, and scaling AI agents for enterprise. 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.

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

SANS AI Cybersecurity Summit

SANS is a leader in cybersecurity, and it's holding a dedicated AI cybersecurity conference from November 3-4. You can attend in-person in Virginia, but it's co-listed as a virtual conference.

The SANS AI Cybersecurity Summit is a must-attend if AI cybersecurity is your area of specialism, especially as it's completely free to register for online attendance. You'll have access to select talks live, as well as first access to recordings and decks, and an interactive Slack chat.

The exact agenda is TBC. But you can expect highly technical talks looking at practical ways to implement an AI cybersecurity strategy.

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.

Details for 2027 are yet to be confirmed, but AI Con will definitely go ahead again next year. You can join the mailing list to be the first to get information (or you can keep checking back in here).

Databricks Data + AI Summit

The Databricks Data + AI Summit has already confirmed 2027 dates. It will be held from June 21-24, returning to San Francisco.

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 last year, 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. 

The Databricks conferences are usually also set up for virtual attendance, making it a great flexible option. You can watch the 2026 edition on demand. 

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 was held in Washington, DC, on June 18. It featured speakers from AT&T, Expedia, and the Gemini team at Google.

Every attendee got a "goodie bag" worth $25,000+, including free credits, GEO tools, and professional audits. The GEO Conference will definitely be one to watch out for again in 2027.

If you’re interested in GEO, then you should 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.

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.