What Web Directions does

Web Directions is an Australia-based privately held conference and events company founded in 2004 by John Allsopp and Maxine Sherrin, producing technology and design conferences for web professionals, UX/design practitioners, and AI engineers. Its 2026 event portfolio spans AI Week Melbourne (June), UX Week Australia (August, including Design Research and UX Australia), the Web Directions 20th Anniversary flagship (November), and AI Engineer Sydney (December), with content delivered both in-person at venues such as Federation Square (Melbourne) and the Teachers Federation Conference Centre (Sydney) and via the proprietary Conffab streaming platform.

The company's technology stack centers on Conffab, a streaming service hosting nearly 1,000 on-demand presentations from 45+ conferences, augmented by an agent-friendly data layer that includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with nine tools, llms.txt discovery documents, JSON APIs, iCal feeds, and semantic search powered by Cloudflare Workers AI embeddings. The most differentiated technical offering is AgentPass, launched in 2026, which enables AI agents to attend conferences as first-class attendees using real-time captions (Deepgram), screen-capture computer vision (Google Gemini over Mux video), and autonomous scheduling and summarization on Cloudflare infrastructure.

Revenue is generated through three streams: conference ticket sales (one-time/per-event pricing with early-bird tiers ranging from $295 to $1,795), corporate sponsorship and partnerships (Google Cloud, Optiver, ClickHouse, Notion, Cognition, Microsoft, Atlassian, and others), and Conffab streaming subscriptions (free and paid tiers). The company operates with a sub-10-person team, is founder-owned with no disclosed external funding, and has accumulated 10,000+ attendees, 2,000+ speakers, and 100+ events across 12 cities and 4 continents over its 20-year history.

Name

Web Directions

Legal name

Web Directions

Website

https://webdirections.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2004

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Web Directions is an Australian privately held conference company producing technology, design, and AI engineering events including AI Engineer, UX Australia, Design Research, and its Web Directions flagship, supported by the Conffab streaming platform and agent-accessible data infrastructure.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Potts Point

HQ country

Australia

HQ region

Oceania

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Conference Ticket Sales: Revenue from selling tickets to in-person and streaming conferences including AI Engineer, UX Australia, Design Research, and Web Directions. Tiered pricing with early-bird discounts.
2. Conffab Streaming Subscription: Streaming platform offering on-demand access to nearly 1,000 presentations from 50+ conferences. Free and paid tiers available.
3. Sponsorship and Partnership Revenue: Corporate sponsors pay to exhibit and engage with attendees at conferences. Partners at AI Engineer Melbourne included Google Cloud, Optiver, ClickHouse, Notion, and Cognition.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Web Directions organizes and produces in-person technology conferences for web, design, and AI professionals, including AI Engineer, UX Australia, Design Research, and its flagship Web Directions conference. The company also operates Conffab, a proprietary streaming platform offering on-demand access to nearly 1,000 presentations from 45+ conferences, featuring AI-powered accessibility tools like AgentPass for AI agent attendance.

Product overview

Web Directions operates a portfolio of technology and design conferences alongside a proprietary streaming platform. The core product lineup for 2026 includes: AI Week (featuring AI Engineer and ai × design), UX Week Australia (featuring Design Research and UX Australia), and the Web Directions 20th Anniversary flagship conference. Supporting these events is Conffab, a streaming platform that delivers live and on-demand conference content with AI-powered features including real-time captions and AgentPass capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Conffab: Streaming service for world-class presentations on-demand, featuring nearly 1,000 presentations from hundreds of experts at 45+ conferences
• AI Week
• UX Week Australia
• AI Engineer
• UX Australia
• Design Research

Products and services

• AI Week A week-long multi-event series bringing together AI practitioners, engineers, researchers, designers, and product leaders. Sydney December 2026 edition features AI Engineer Sydney plus sideshows and community events.
• UX Week Australia A week-long event series in Sydney featuring Design Research (August 26) and UX Australia (August 27-28) conferences plus sideshows and community meetups, targeting Australian UX and design professionals.
• Web Directions Flagship Conference The flagship annual conference series celebrating 20 years in 2026, covering front-end development, design, and broader web industry topics. Held in Sydney in November 2026.
• AI Engineer Conference World-leading AI engineering conference bringing production-focused AI content to Australia. Melbourne edition (June 3-4, 2026) sold out. Sydney edition (December 7-8, 2026) at Hilton Hotel. Features three tracks: Leadership, AI Engineer, and SWE/Agentic Coding.
• UX Australia Conference Australia's premier UX conference held annually in Sydney (August 27-28, 2026). Covers UX, product and service design, research, content, operations, and management. Produced by Web Directions since 2009.
• Design Research Conference A one-day conference dedicated to design research and evidence-led practice. Held August 26, 2026 in Sydney at Teachers Federation Conference Centre. Part of UX Week Australia.
• ai x design Conference A one-day conference exploring how AI, LLMs, and ML are transforming design practice. Collaboration between UX Australia and Web Directions. Held June 3, 2026 in Melbourne at Federation Square.
• Conffab Streaming Platform Web Directions' proprietary streaming platform offering on-demand access to nearly 1,000 presentations from 45+ conferences. Provides live streaming of in-person events with real-time captions and chat. Free and paid tiers available.

Quantifiable outcome

• 18 years of continuous operation with 100+ events
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability7 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

13 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Stone & ChalkcoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 June 2026Host partner for AI Week Melbourne. Stone & Chalk Melbourne Startup Hub hosts opening night kickoff, AI Week Opening Night, Robotics & AI For Everyone event, Watt The Hack hackathon, and Build Your First Robot workshop.
• MLAI (Melbourne AI)coreGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 June 2026Host partner for AI Week Melbourne. MLAI organizes multiple events including Watt The Hack (Energy & AI Hackathon), AI Builder Co-working Day, and Build Your First Robot workshop.
• AI Engineer (Shawn Wang)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2026Partnership with AI Engineer conference series to bring the world-leading AI engineering conference to Australia. Web Directions produces the Australian edition.
• UX AustraliacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLong-running partnership with UX Australia, co-presenting UX Week Australia featuring UX Australia and Design Research conferences. Steve Baty is co-founder of UX Australia.
• MicrosoftminorGTM or Marketing PartnerHosts AI by Design Evenings at Microsoft Melbourne office as part of AI Week Melbourne, focusing on enterprise AI adoption.
• Google Cloud / Google DeepMindminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner at AI Engineer Melbourne 2026. Logo displayed on partners page.
• OptiverminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner at AI Engineer Melbourne 2026. Logo displayed on partners page.
• ClickHouseminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner at AI Engineer Melbourne 2026. Logo displayed on partners page.
• NotionminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner at AI Engineer Melbourne 2026. Hosts Builder's AMA event with Vercel.
• CognitionminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner at AI Engineer Melbourne 2026. Logo displayed on partners page.
• AtlassianminorGTM or Marketing PartnerHosts MelbCSS June meetup at Atlassian Melbourne office during AI Week.
• ZendeskminorGTM or Marketing PartnerHosts Melbourne AI Enthusiasts meetup during AI Week Melbourne.
• VercelminorGTM or Marketing PartnerPartners with Notion for Builder's AMA: Building & Shipping AI Products event during AI Week Melbourne.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• O'Reilly Media: Operates O'Reilly conferences and a paid learning platform spanning software, data, and AI. Comparable as a tech-professional conference + content subscription business, though materially larger and US-centric.
• Reed Exhibitions: Largest global exhibition and conference organizer running hundreds of B2B events annually. Comparable as a conference operator but with vastly greater scale, geographic reach, and sponsor relationships.
• Config (Figma): Figma's annual design conference for product designers and design leaders. Comparable audience (UX/design professionals) but backed by a single large platform vendor rather than independent.

Direct peers

• Strange Loop: Independent, curated developer conference in the US covering emerging programming and infrastructure topics. Comparable as an editorially-driven, single-organization tech conference with premium pricing.
• JSConf: Community-led JavaScript conference family with global city editions. Comparable as independent, community-rooted web-development conferences with similar ticket pricing and global reach ambitions.
• Smashing Conference: Independent conference series for web designers and front-end developers. Highly comparable as a curated, community-led web/digital conference brand with premium pricing and traveling city format.
• UX London: Long-running UK UX conference by Clearleft targeting UX practitioners and design leaders. Closely comparable as an independent, community-rooted UX/design conference with premium pricing and curated programming.
• An Event Apart: Long-running US web design and development conference with a similar editorial, expert-speaker focus. Closely comparable in programming philosophy and target audience of digital professionals.
• AI Engineer: World-leading AI engineering conference series founded by Shawn Wang, for which Web Directions produces the Australian edition. Directly comparable as an AI-engineer conference brand; Web Directions is the APAC licensee.
• React Summit: Large community React and JavaScript conference with in-person and online editions. Comparable audience of front-end and full-stack engineers and similar hybrid event + streaming model.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/webdirections
• Facebookfacebook.com/webdirections
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/web-directions

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 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 Web Directions