The AI Conference

What The AI Conference does

The AI Conference, LLC is a privately held event production company that runs an annual vendor-neutral conference series focused on applied AI, founded in 2023 by Shon Burton (previously founder of MLconf, The Machine Learning Conference, acquired in 2020) and headquartered as an Arizona LLC in Chandler, Arizona. The company produces a multi-day in-person event held annually in San Francisco; the 2026 edition is scheduled for September 29 - October 1 at Pier 48, Mission Rock, with a capped 350-participant Day ZERØ pre-conference on the day prior. The 2026 program spans five tracks (AI Frontiers, AI Builders, The AI Stack, Applied AI, AI Strategy), 8 pre-conference workshops, a live Hack Day, a Startup Showdown VC pitch competition, an Innovation Hub, and an AI Week of networking events, targeting 5,500+ attendees and 120+ speakers from frontier AI labs and enterprises (Anthropic, Google, Meta, Netflix, OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft, a16z, Stanford HAI, Modular, Cerebras, OpenRouter, Musixmatch).

The core technology is a web-based conference platform: a public website (aiconference.com) with content marketing, ticket registration with early-bird and team pricing, a sponsor sales funnel, a press/analyst access application, and year-round community channels (YouTube, Discord, email newsletter, social media). Ben Lorica (previously Program Chair for O'Reilly's Artificial Intelligence Conference and the Strata Data Conference) leads programming. The company is a small team of approximately 10 known members including a Founder/Producer, Program Chair, Co-founder/Advisor, VP of Operations, Director of Events, Business Operations Manager, two Sponsorship Sales professionals, and a high-profile advisory bench (AMD Corporate VP of AI, Intel Capital AI investment director, Bloomberg Beta partner, MIT/Technion PhD professor, ex-Apple senior manager).

The business model is a hybrid event-revenue model. The primary stream is one-time ticket sales for the 3-day conference pass, with a $1,600 early-bird discount off the undisplayed full price, team-ticket pricing for groups of 2+, and a premium Day ZERØ add-on for 350 participants. The second stream is enterprise sponsorship packages sold through a direct sales team ([email protected]), with 40+ sponsors across tier levels anchored by AWS, Google Cloud, IBM, Databricks, Microsoft, and Neo4j, plus a separate hack-day compute sponsor layer (Crusoe, Vultr, Brave, Thenvoi, Neo4j). A third stream is hack-day participation fees. The company has no disclosed institutional investment, no subsidiaries, no patents, and no app, and operates independently under Arizona governing law.

Name

The AI Conference

Legal name

The AI Conference, LLC

Website

https://aiconference.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The AI Conference is a privately held event production company that runs an annual vendor-neutral applied AI conference in San Francisco, serving 5,500+ AI engineers, executives, researchers, and investors through ticketed passes, workshops, and enterprise sponsorship packages.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Technology Conferences

NAICS

Convention and Trade Show Organizers (561920)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro primary industry

Virtual/Hybrid Conference Production & Platform Management (THAHACAM)

Keywords

• AI conference events
• Applied AI workshops
• Machine learning summit
• Enterprise AI training
• Technology event production

Headquarters

HQ city

San Diego

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Conference Tickets: Individual and team tickets for the annual AI Conference 2026 (September 29 - October 1), including full 3-day passes and Day ZERØ access. Early pricing available with discounts such as $1,600 off mentioned.
2. Sponsorship Packages: Sponsorship opportunities offering premium brand visibility, thought leadership through sponsored sessions and keynotes, and lead generation with enterprise decision-makers, investors, developers, and media. Innovation Hub showcases vendor demos.
3. Hack Day: Hack Day participation fees for builders racing to ship functioning AI applications in a single day, with prizes and main stage pitch opportunities

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

The AI Conference produces and sells tickets to a multi-day, in-person applied AI conference held annually in San Francisco. Its core product is the 3-day main conference (5 tracks, 120+ speakers) complemented by pre-conference Day ZERØ workshops, a one-day Hack Day, the Startup Showdown competition, the Innovation Hub vendor showcase, and AI Week networking events. The company also sells corporate sponsorship packages to AI technology vendors seeking access to its audience of 5,500+ AI practitioners, researchers, and decision-makers.

Product overview

The AI Conference is a multi-day conference series focused on applied AI, built as a unified event platform comprising the main conference (featuring 5 curated tracks: AI Frontiers, AI Builders, The AI Stack, Applied AI, and AI Strategy), pre-conference programming (Day ZERØ workshops and Hack Day), competitive showcases (Startup Showdown), networking experiences (Party in the Park, Ignite Talks, VIP dinners), and the Innovation Hub for emerging AI tools and startups. The event brings together 5,500+ builders, researchers, and AI leaders annually to learn from 120+ speakers about shipping AI from research to production.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• The AI Conference 2026 Vendor-neutral, multi-day applied AI conference held annually in San Francisco, featuring 5 curated tracks, 120+ speakers, networking events, and an Innovation Hub vendor showcase, targeted at AI engineers, executives, researchers, founders, and AI technology vendors.
• Day ZERØ Capped, high-signal pre-conference experience for senior engineers, product leaders, founders, and executives, featuring 8 hands-on 90-minute workshops, Hack Day observation, a VIP dinner, and access to AI Week events, bundled with the full 3-day conference pass.
• Hack Day One-day AI build competition where small teams of builders and founders use modern AI tooling to ship functioning AI applications in a single day, with prizes and a main-stage pitch to VCs through the Startup Showdown.
• Startup Showdown Live startup competition where emerging AI companies pitch to a panel of top venture capitalists, competing on execution, product clarity, and real-world viability, with the Hack Day winner also earning a main-stage pitch slot.
• Innovation Hub Vendor and startup showcase where leading AI companies demo emerging tools, platforms, and breakthrough technologies to enterprise decision-makers, investors, developers, and media.
• AI Week Series of networking events during conference week, including Party in the Park, Ignite Talks, and exclusive attendee gatherings, available to all registered conference attendees.
• Corporate Sponsorship Packages Multi-tier corporate sponsorship packages for AI technology vendors (AWS, Google Cloud, IBM, Databricks, Microsoft, Neo4j, etc.), offering premium brand visibility, sponsored sessions and keynotes, Innovation Hub demos, and lead generation access to enterprise decision-makers, investors, developers, and media.

Quantifiable outcome

• 5,500+ attendees from AI ecosystem
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Google CloudcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerGoogle Cloud is a major sponsor of The AI Conference 2026 and is featured in Day ZERØ workshops covering Google Cloud Run for Agentic AI applications. The partnership provides hands-on technical content for conference attendees focused on enterprise serverless runtimes for AI workloads.
• AWScoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAWS is a sponsor of The AI Conference, participating in the conference as an exhibitor and thought leader in AI infrastructure and enterprise adoption.
• IBMcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIBM is a sponsor of The AI Conference, contributing to the AI ecosystem representation at the conference with participation across various sponsorship activations.
• DatabrickscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDatabricks sponsors The AI Conference as a major data and AI platform vendor engaging with the AI practitioner community at the event.
• MicrosoftcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMicrosoft is a sponsor of The AI Conference with Azure and AI platform presentations featured at the conference, representing enterprise AI capabilities.
• Neo4jcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNeo4j sponsors The AI Conference as a graph database and analytics platform vendor, supporting the AI infrastructure ecosystem at the event.
• CrusoeminorGTM or Marketing PartnerCrusoe provides hack day support for The AI Conference, offering compute resources for teams building AI applications during the hack day event.
• VultrminorGTM or Marketing PartnerVultr provides hack day support for The AI Conference, offering infrastructure resources for hack day participants.
• BraveminorGTM or Marketing PartnerBrave provides hack day support for The AI Conference, contributing to the hack day sponsor ecosystem.
• ThenvoiminorGTM or Marketing PartnerThenvoi (Band.ai) provides hack day support for The AI Conference, participating as a hack day sponsor.
• Neo4j (Hack Day)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerNeo4j provides hack day support for The AI Conference, offering graph database resources and expertise for hack day teams.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• O'Reilly AI Conference: O'Reilly's AI Conference is a direct applied-AI conference competitor; The AI Conference's Program Chair Ben Lorica previously held that role at O'Reilly, indicating direct overlap in programming philosophy and audience targeting.
• QCon: QCon is a practitioner-focused software/AI conference series with similar applied, production-oriented content angle and senior engineering/executive audience. Comparable in format and pricing model.
• ODSC (Open Data Science Conference): ODSC runs large applied AI and data science conferences with similar practitioner/executive audience mix, vendor-neutral positioning, and sponsor-driven revenue model. Highly comparable to The AI Conference in format and target persona.
• Ai4: Ai4 is a business-focused AI conference series targeting enterprise decision-makers and AI practitioners. Directly comparable to The AI Conference's executive/strategy tracks and sponsor ecosystem.

Broad incumbents

• Nvidia GTC: Nvidia's GTC is the dominant AI infrastructure conference with similar tracks on applied AI, builders, and enterprise strategy. Competes for the same sponsor dollars and senior AI practitioner audience but operates at much larger scale.
• AWS re:Invent: AWS re:Invent is a major cloud/AI conference that competes for the same enterprise sponsor budgets (AWS is also a sponsor of The AI Conference). Comparable as a large-scale vendor-aligned AI conference but owned and operated by a single hyperscaler.
• NeurIPS: NeurIPS is the leading academic AI conference. Comparable as a flagship AI gathering with top-tier speakers but academic rather than applied/commercial in orientation, attracting a different sponsor mix.

Emerging players

• Strange Loop: Strange Loop is a boutique practitioner-focused tech conference with similar intimate, curated programming ethos. Comparable in scale and format but broader than pure AI.
• Ray Summit: Ray Summit is a focused AI infrastructure conference (Ben Lorica is co-chair) targeting similar ML engineers and AI builders as The AI Conference's AI Stack and AI Builders tracks.

Regional players

• World AI Conference (WAIC): WAIC is a major global AI conference held in Shanghai. Comparable as a flagship applied AI event with similar breadth of speakers and tracks, but primarily serves the Asia-Pacific market and competes for international sponsor attention.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/AIconference
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@aiconference
• Facebookfacebook.com/AIconference
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-ai-conference
• Instagraminstagram.com/aiconference

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about The AI Conference