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TLDR
AI Engineer's World's Fair is deliberately pausing growth instead of chasing bigger venues: next year stays at the same size, venue, and week in San Francisco. The organizer's stated goal is patient process optimization and a decade-long industry institution, not a hypergrowth hustle. For anyone tracking the AI engineering ecosystem, it is a useful counterweight to the usual bigger-every-year conference story.
Key points
The AIE speaker CFP drew roughly 2,200 applications for about 300 spots.
The Shanghai event targets November, but its date has shifted twice and remains TBD.
swyx plans to replace the third-party mobile app with an in-house web app next year.
Poster sessions debuted through a partnership with the ACM Kais conference, which handled selection.
swyx defended excluding an AI safety or X-risk track as outside engineering work.
Tools mentioned
Techniques
- vibe coding
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
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Transcript (captions)
Hi everyone. Uh I'm Swix. I'm one of the organizers of this conference. Um basically this is one of these open-ended Q&A feedback sessions. If you guys have feedback or Q&A about how any
of this conference is run, uh I'm the guy to answer everything. We actually really do take the feedback and implement it at our next conference. Uh we're going to announce that we're back
here a year from now in 2027 as well as in New York uh which is our next conference immediately focused on finance and anything money and AI. Um so this kind of very open-ended. If you
have questions, we'll do it. If no questions, I'm just going to end early. So, over to you. Anyone has questions? Yeah. >> So, uh let me let me refra uh let me
paraphrase so I can people hear. Uh what about an AI safety or existential risk track next year? Um that usually happens in Ligh Haven up north in Berkeley. Um I would say that uh typically it is not so
much engineering. Um I would say that typically it is a form of like discussion and research and theory that uh we typically don't put as a track. Uh because mostly I want people to do stuff
that they would use at work. That's like kind of my dividing line. Um that said, we're very pro people organizing their own uh meetups. We have places to for uh attendees to present uh which I think is
very important for people to speak. Um we'll have other venues like uh for example we also did not have AI for science this year and obviously science is a thing that a lot of people do for
work. Uh but people just organized meetups. There was an AI for science meetup and there was there's there can be a meetup or X-risk. Um I'm familiar with it. I'm a little bit of a doomer. I
have I've said this before in my public statements. Uh, it is just not the purpose of an AI engineer to help with that. >> Yep. [laughter]
>> Hello. >> Sorry. Okay, we're on. >> Um, I guess my only response is that I almost think it should be the job of the AI engineers as much as anyone else to
be considering this sort of like >> ongoing loop machine that we're now talking about building and sort of considering okay, what is the endg game of that? But yeah, thank you. Yeah to to
totally and obviously it's not something that I'm people are aware of it there's a whole security track there's a sandboxing track uh you know there there's this appears in a lot of our
work like if you have any guardrails if you have any evals um our eval track open with labs we're actually a very safety aligned company but they they do vending bench um and through vending
bench and through frontier evals that involve the real world they actually discover way more alignment issues than people who just vaguely talk about X- risk, right? Like so to me it's like
very interesting to directly point towards a thing that people do at work and the thing that is like leading in the frontier and along the way solve alignment or solve X- risk. Um I think
at the end of the day the statement that engineers uh AI can be engineered or engineers can wield AI and control AI in the systems is fundamentally a control structure over AI anyway. Um, so
everyone here is like philosophically aligned to it without necessarily having to put it front and center. >> Uh, first of all, first of all, uh, great event. Uh, and I
have not so much of a question as, uh, maybe a bit of feedback. Do you think, uh, the expo, the expo itself, uh, like maybe four days is too much? >> No. Uh, do you think so?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's uh kind of pretty like it was kind of half that today almost. I would also like think maybe just have a one just fully dedicated day to just like partners on
like some networking events and just like session and so maybe one day like conference style and workshops only and maybe have the expo only for two days u I mean you know
>> yeah okay um I'm not sure that everyone would agree >> um and that's the first thing the second thing is actually I had complaints that there was not enough expo [laughter]
Uh, so the the structure of the conference is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The expo only opened at 4 PM on Monday. And I had people asked me how come it wasn't open
on Monday the whole day, you know. Um, all I will say is as long as people staff the expo and and stuff happens and sponsors pay for it, I'm very happy keeping it open. Uh I
actually think world's fair is different from my other summits in a sense that summits are meant to be very curated and focused on content. The world's fairs are meant to be uh more expo actually
like this is the the kind of expo that I always imagined where you can just get an expo ticket and walk around all day and get a sense of the field. Uh and if you can't make Monday you can come to
Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday which actually people do. People come on the single days only because obviously they have work. Um other things about this um I actually what's very funny is I
actually have thought about what if there was even more expo upstairs. Uh because I I don't like the time pressure of talks. Um I think that you know having to rush to this room that room
that this room is very pressuring on everybody attendees and speakers and even us as organizers. The natural way that people have conversations here is just kind of walking around I think is
great. So, what if we turned upstairs into like kind of a content expo? Here is like the sponsor expo and people just stood around. It's also very tiring to stand around. So, I don't know what the
right mix is. Um, what else would I say about this? We also in insert a lot of breaks like you know, we spent a lot on like the puppy corner and like the uh the poster sessions and the music corner
and like you know, Grav even brought in the uh you like the music corner. Um, people complained about the music corner. They were like, "Ah, it's like interrupting my quiet time outside." And
I'm like, "Well, you can go upstairs to the leadership lounge. You can come downstairs to the expo." I don't know. Um, I like music, so I at the music
[laughter] corner. Um, >> uh, can we have you as a speaker back at Shift in Croatia? >> Oo, I love Shift. I love Shift.
>> You're coming back this year or next? >> Uh, I have just lost my passport. I'm stuck in the US until I get my new passport. Um, but yeah, so uh for those who don't know, AIE was started inspired
by Shift in Croatia. Shift is one of the best conferences I've ever been to and spoken at. Um, and Ivonne is, you know, a mentor of mine for organizing AIE. Uh, and potentially, you know, running it as
a as a business that that can be sold. Um, yeah, I would love to come back. I just haven't really I I you know now I now I travel to other AIES around the world uh by uh you know this this year
basically we're between four to five partner conferences in Miami, Melbourne, Sydney, Shanghai uh Shanghai is still TBD but uh Paris is also going to happen uh and Singapore and so I already have a
lot of travel then like adding travel to nonE conferences is is is a big ask but shift is We also had uh visitors from we are developers and other some other uh large
conferences. Uh we're apparently starting to show up on other people's radars you know like we are a lot younger. I don't know how old is shift like seven eight years old
>> 15. Yeah. So like we are three years old. Um and bigger than a lot of other I think we're bigger than Shift now. um like it's it's it's interesting that like how
we merge in with the other conference um companies and and how we figure in the landscape of the marketing charts and time calendars of of uh you know our sponsors and our attendees uh and so I'm
I'm kind of sensitive to how we fit in the broader scale because we're not the only conference that people will go to. >> Hello. Hi. Hi. So I'm coming down from Bangalore. uh this is my second AI
engineers worldfare here uh that I'm attending. So I was just wondering that how AIE chapters are growing. Is there a plan for bringing this to India? Probably Bangalore or any of uh the
cities eventually. >> Yeah. You're the fifth Indian to ask me that in this. >> Exactly. We need that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, obviously there's
high demand and there's a lot of people in India. Uh yeah, there is uh we have a partner uh Gortech. I think uh you know them. Um basically we have partnerships program. They're on the website. You go
to AI.engineers. engineers scroll down you see the partnerships section we have about 40 countries lined up that all want to do some kind of AIE in their country and we are not going to reach
every country right so uh the the idea is just like to scalably do the TED TED versus TEDex model of like okay I run the main TED and everyone can have the TED in TEDex in their country as long as
it serves them I don't care like you know like I mean actually I I care in sense of like I want the brand to still stand for something uh and have meaningful conversations and and have
good technical content Um but I don't want to be the limiting factor on countries having their own community and if AI can help that then why not u and so so India is one of
those places where I'm like I don't really know the country that well but if you guys want to take it and run with it yeah absolutely sure so that we have somebody that I've been talking to since
um AI Singapore that wants to do it for Bangalore um and presumably the other cities as well I think we probably start with Bangalore. Yeah. No, that that makes sense. And is there a plan for
like communities like these the chapters that like uh let's say people can join and we can join and be a part of it? >> Yeah. So actually AIE has no community apart from the social media pages and
Twitter and and LinkedIn and a very inactive Slack. Uh it we you know I only focus on inerson community. I think it would be very interesting to build online community, but I much prefer us
live on other existing platforms because that's where people already hang out. I don't want to add yet another Slack to your already 200 Slacks. I have too many Slacks. Like, I don't need another
Slack, but I'm already in Twitter. AIE is integrated in Twitter. By the way, it's free marketing for AIE every time you tweet about AIE. Like, it's there's just many reasons to just integrate on
your existing social media. anyway your existing blogs um and we we get by on that uh we there are meetups um AIE Italy has been meeting for a long time a London has been meeting for a long time
u and I think there's I think AIE Argentina there is one of the South American countries is meeting so people can organize meetups we provide support um and uh I think that's that's the
community really like I would don't even think about it as the AIE community I think about it just more as like if you're an engineer in AI you will sometimes come to AIE Sometimes you go
to other not as good conferences and then you think about how great AI was and you come back. [laughter] >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Oh, thanks Yan for being the the mic
guy. [laughter] Yan is a like multiple time speaker as well and like uh it's great to have you here. >> Hey. Hey. It's uh Eric Nes. I organized
the AI engineer meetup in Minneapolis. >> Hey. >> Hey. >> We were just talking about this. >> Yeah, you can start your own meetup. You
just >> you can just do things. >> DM Swix. >> Just DM Swix. Uh, so the production here has been
awesome and I'm just wondering like for local meetups, do you have any quick tips for how to up production value? production value. That's an interesting one. Um,
I don't because I think it is or I organized meetups for years before I did my first conference talk and I think that meetups are a labor of love and they're always last minute and you're
always looking for speakers, you're always looking for venues, you're always ordering pizzas and what have you and that's that's the norm. Um the production
it usually just involves a group of volunteers that all help each other out. Like you don't definitely don't do it alone. I think definitely having a home where like people consistently know this
is the same venue, same time of the month like let's say we meet every fourth Thursday or something, you know. >> Yep. Um, and then lastly, it's just always the polish in like selection of
speakers and then the way you record it, if you record it. Um, I definitely do not think you need to record the whole thing. Basically, I think there are some meetups that run effectively as mini
conferences where they do two to five talks a meet every meetup and it's just talk talk talk and then c this discussion and then you end. I think that the the possible things that you
can do at meetups are much wider that you can do other activities that mingle a lot more and you can um in Portland they used to do these like beer things and you just go out and have beers in a
beer garden. Um and that's fun. That's a meetup. Uh it doesn't always have to be like a mini conference talk like this like this stuff. >> Yeah. We usually do like some social
time, two talks and then a little bit more social time. So >> yeah. So I would say that that is the norm and that is uh what a an average meetup should be
>> and then and then if you want to add a little bit more flare on it, you have the website, you have the prestigious company sponsoring it, you have like top speakers whenever they're in town, they
go they go to that meetup because that's the one that's known because it has a Twitter account and a YouTube channel and all has all this stuff. It's just all extra work on top of just organizing
the meetup. >> Okay. >> Um maybe you can talk to JS uh look at look for JS.la LA I would say as that's a a pretty successful meetup.
>> Okay. >> Uh that is wellrun well produced. Uh it like I think if you figure out the event organization and then publishing that's the 8020 of it. You don't really
need a ton else of like infrastructure or company organization around it. >> Um >> and to some extent I I want to keep it the bar low and accessible. You can
always up it. You can always start end up running your own conference. Uh just be prepared for it to be your full-time job [laughter] and uh it can it's not for everybody.
>> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you. I' I've really enjoyed myself here. >> Thanks for coming, man.
>> Thank you. Yeah. >> Uh more questions, more feedback. Um again, yeah. >> Uh so mainly my feedback is around like I think Monday the workshops, right? I
feel like if there's a way to like sign up online for a room because like I spent half the day waiting in line to get into a room that I never got into. >> Yeah. Um yeah, this is something that we
failed uh attendees this year. I'm sorry about that. Um some some like we have roughly equalized rooms, but we don't have equaliz allocation to make. I mean the trade-off
is that everything is recorded. So, I just say like if if a room is full, go to your number two, go to your number three. Um uh but yes, people want to pre-register. Um we tried to we paid a
vendor a lot of money for the mobile app for the conference and we couldn't make it work for the pre-registration for the workshops. I don't I personally wasn't involved. So, my team just said like we
tried it and it's not the right fit. So, next year we'll try it. Uh people always want registration. Uh I will I will just generally say that um you know I register for things and I also don't
show up. So [laughter] uh I think there needs to be some better organization that that we owe you as an attendee to do that we haven't done and you know I I'm disappointed in that we
didn't do it this year. I I I seriously thought this was the year that we would start doing workshops uh registrations. Um and we promise people that we didn't do it. Um it's mostly a software issue.
We got to figure it out. Thank you. Again, it's all recorded, right? Like, you know, I I think that it's the UX of who gets in the room and then how quickly do you know you're not
getting in the room so you can go to the next thing. So, uh I am optimized for that. I know that that is a pain point. Um yeah, I'm I heard as they say maybe I I have one as well. Yeah.
>> Uh is the maximum size of the conference that you're planning? I mean given the capacity of the venue because I I feel like it's it's not necessarily like the bigger the better always.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I agree and um we did go for size in uh as far as the world fair is concerned because size has its own benefits because it can pull some of the top speakers that we have. Um but then
there's also such a thing as too big. So I haven't announced this yet but you guys get a special preview. We're going to go on to the closing keynotes and say next year we're not growing. So next
year, same size, same venue, same everything. And we just optimized. Uh it was the idea that now all of our sponsors have seen what a world's fair at Moscone looks like. All of our
attendees have seen it. All of our um speakers have seen it. That's all. And most importantly, my employees have all seen it. So now we actually know what a world's fair looks like at Mosone. We're
just going to do this every year until we get good and then we can grow. And so I think probably next year like I there was some rooms that were still empty like level three was still kind of
I think we can just optimize the usage of the existing space better but we have the exact same week booked next year and so we can just come back like we you know we I so I'm very comfortable making
the promise of that nothing like we won't grow in terms of like changing to a larger venue or anything like that and I think I want everyone to have a much experience including us organizing so
that um you know this becomes a sustainable industry conference like I want this to last decades. I want this to be an industry institution. This is not a quick hyperrowth hustle for me.
You know I I really believe that AI engineering deserves uh you know the top conference that uh that we can kind we can run. So yeah, I I I feel the the the the the the comments mostly from
Europeans. Uh which is like very interesting. Um but yeah, I I I definitely don't like the very very very very big like reinvent type AWS things in in Las Vegas. So we will never leave
San Francisco. Um Moscone is it at least for this year and next year and probably the next five years. Um, in fact, my joke is the next step up from here is that I raise money and I build a new
building. Uh, because I there's there's things about Moscone I don't like. So, um, what does that look like, right? Um, so we we'll see. Uh, but you know, I think I always joke like the business of
tech actually just funds real estate. It's not the, you know, it's not the other way around. Anyway, I I that's a little bit of a ramble, but um there is that that is the intention that we only
grow by geog geography and like accessibility to other countries, but as far as San Francisco is concerned, this is we're going to stay put for a while. >> Thank you.
>> I don't know if this came up, but the Wi-Fi really was bad. Like even the presenters were not able to present their demos in the workshops mainly. I don't know if it's up to you or
>> No, we got we got uh we got complaints, we got demands for refunds, everything. Uh it happens every year. Um uh and you know, we we pay maximum for whatever the Wi-Fi package they offer us is.
>> And so beyond that, what can we do? Um and the the truth of it is most of these venues are not set up for engineers downloading gigabytes of things per laptop every time. Like they they're not
that kind of conference venue. Um, so, uh, to me the this is an improvement from last year because we're no longer in basement 3 of the Marriott where there's no reception. Here, at least
everyone can tether. Uh, and that's good. As far as speakers were concerned, uh, we actually did have a separate speaker Wi-Fi. Uh, I'm not sure that every speaker was told about it, but as
far as I I was always on the speaker Wi-Fi and I never got any issue. Uh, and also sponsors have a separate Wi-Fi as well, so we want to make sure the sponsors can do their demos. Um but as
far as attendees, yes, there will be congestion. Um we try to pay for the max of everything. The other, you know, I think the next option from here is I don't know build buying our own hots
hotspots and like giving everyone like second Wi-Fi things. Um it's not great. It's never been great at any conference I've ever been to. So I that's that's the uncomfortable answer that I have to
give right now. Unless you know a Wi-Fi person. [laughter] >> Yeah. How many satellites do you need? How many dishes do you need to serve
7,000 people? I don't know. Starting cool though. >> Hey, how's it going? Uh my name is Justin. This is my first uh AI engineer.
>> Welcome event. Um I frequently travel to China. Uh I saw that there's a Shanghai uh possibly but you just mentioned that it's TVD. >> Yep.
>> So is that why uh there is a weight list? >> Yep. >> Okay. Okay. Just wanted to confirm that and make sure.
>> Uh thank you. >> Yeah. Uh right now targeted at November. This date has shifted back two times already. Um >> I don't know we uh we we these are all
we rely on external partners uh that we work with to organize the international events. Uh but we want to do Shanghai. We want to bring American researchers and engineers to meet their Chinese
counterparts and have that exchange because I think uh that will at least give people an opportunity to understand who's on the other side. Um I mean it's pretty good that they come here but we
should do the other the other way too. I I I find it interesting. That's your first That's your first question. You given that it's your first time coming to AIE. You didn't have anything else.
You just want this to be in Shanghai. That's your question. [laughter] Uh okay. Other questions or feedback? We don't have to take the full period. >> Yes. Oh, hello.
>> Hey. Um, my name is Alex. So, first of all, thank you for such a great event and uh I'm first time on AI engineer and it's really cool. Um, I really like the idea of the leadership track and really
cool stuff there. The uh uh the one improvement there that I I think would be really good which we actually experienced earlier this morning is to have more like free time to chat and
share the experience among the leaders. So you you have a lot of great speakers already lined up but with all the leadership you also bring a lot of experience across the a lot of companies
having the opportunity to just share the experience with each other and maybe have open-ended sessions with the topic saying like how the organization work how you figuring out the product how you
figuring out the design. I think that would be a great addition to this like just let people to share their experience. >> Yeah. Um, I agree,
but I don't know if that is my top top priority because people can still exchange contacts and meet tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday. It's a holiday. People can still meet. They don't have
to meet here. Um, they also there was also the leadership lounge where people could hang out all day. This is basically like if you want to chat, you can just not go to the sessions. So like
it's it's that that is that is an open debate, right? Right. So should I content max or should I use the time and just schedule nothing in that time and just let people talk or just give you an
option. >> That that is an that is an option. So to me the option to not attend sessions is built into everything at AIE, right? You can just not attend anything and just
talk and a lot of people do that. And so then a question of like okay I've I think you have your own free will and autonomy to do all those things. You have the space the the lounge um to do
that. Then what else am I optimizing for? I'm kind of just optimizing for getting the best speakers and content I can online so that everyone can benefit online. And so then I just give them the
space. And sometimes people speak to rooms where it's like 80% not full. it's okay because they get their stuff, they get the story out. Sometimes it's very very good and actually it does a lot
better online than it does in person. Um, so then I'm like, okay, I much rather have that than leave it blank where we pay for this space and we didn't use it. But I understand this
this perspective. I would say that um as far as the summits go or like in in London for example, um there was no separate leadership track. There was basically leadership lunchons and the
lunchons were very good because we had basically five 10 minutes guided discussion and then the the rest the rest of the hour was just chat across tables among everything and we focused
the conversation around like three topics that we that we sort of prime people on. Um and that was very well reviewed. Um people like said we should bring that back. We didn't do it this
time. Uh but I think for the the summits we can definitely do that. Can I give the tactical feedback on the mobile application if you can add filter on location uh to like filter out booth
for example if you're looking for agenda or something like that. >> Ah uh >> very tactical small thing. >> Um if if I'm I assume you don't you're
talking about the dedicated mobile app right? Yeah, the the dick mobile. >> So, uh if if I have my way, uh that will go away next year and we will just do the web app um
as a as its own its own thing. Um so, I mean I I I hope that this was useful to people because I I would love to have this because then I can vibe code whatever filter I want. Um
I don't know. Um, yeah, we want to get rid of that vendor. >> Yeah, honestly, uh, that app is a slob. Uh, >> which one? Well, the the mobile app.
It's >> Oh, okay. Some people say they liked it because well, for example, it doesn't filter like the past sessions. You'll have to scroll down like I mean
>> just set the filter and that's it. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's rough. Okay. No, this is why I have resisted making an app for like for us even though we can code. I resisted making an app for a long time
because they all suck, right? So actually the only app you like is the one that you made. So why don't I just publish all my all my JSON files, right? And then go knock yourself out. So there
was nothing stopping you from vi coding your own stuff because the the data was open the whole time. We have MCPS and CLI and um uh people some people did it,
some people don't. uh but you could you could always like if if there's any conference where you can vi code your own app it's this this one so why not uh I mean but obviously we should provide a
good default and so next year I want to take control of that um because I think I finally understand what we need to show people um and it took me three years to learn this problem because my
my sample size is not that high this is only the seventh AIE >> the game is really cool the game Um, >> people,
>> a lot of people asked what you spoke about. When do we get your keynote? When do we get you to do an online talk? When do we get to hear your takes? >> I did a keynote yesterday. Um, Tuesday.
>> DJ, >> I thought I don't know. I was pretty happy with my keynote. Uh, basically it's like the idea was uh everyone is doing loops. Oo, look at that. Um,
everyone's doing loops and um, sorry, I think this is very distracting. >> This was just part of uh, you know, the content the CLI is out there. >> Yeah. Okay. This is
>> this for the >> So only only Opus decided to do an auto tour thing so I don't have to touch it and it tours through all the talks. Um, okay. So um
yeah my talks I don't know I have a podcast I don't need to speak [laughter] to talks >> um yeah just one other point um I thought of just now was that the
breakout workshops are really cool but sometimes 20 minutes is just like not enough to get through anything of sort of substance um and I thought the workshops themselves are really good
because you had an actual hour to see how it actually looks in practice as opposed to sort of like one vendor being like Yeah, we have this app and this is what it can do and you just kind of it's
very high level. So if they could consider like a mixture of lengths of um >> you know we mixed them right we actually did >> okay nothing I went to was long.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So so I mean it wasn't that super obvious but um um >> that's on that's on me. >> Yeah. No it's it's fine. It's only I know everything right. Um so every day
had a workshop uh schedule. So this today this is the the workshop one where people have like this is basically two backtoback sessions this 45 minutes uh and then
every day had a workshop room where if you had longer form content I would give you that room so this is workshop this is basically room four had their workshops day um so every day had that
but a lot of people just have talks so I did um one of the three or four inspirations of AIE is GDC, Game DevCon. GDC does a lot of one-hour workshops where it's like, okay, here's everything
about web slinging in Spider-Man 4 and and they do that and those those are typically what you do in these kind of workshop rooms. Others would be more sort of quick hits like lightning talk
like type type things. Um, I would say that attention uh online attention on YouTube is going shorter and shorter in terms of attention spans. So honestly making people condense into 20 minutes
is pretty good and we have an entire workshop day 10 tracks of workshop day on the first day as well as three workshop rooms across the remainder of the days. I feel like it's enough. Um,
you know, arguably it's can can be up or up or down, but we have something. I Yeah, I do want people to go deep. Many people don't have don't deserve the time, but they want
the time, and so I don't give it to them. Hey, um thanks a lot for organizing this. It's been really great for the um for all these subtracks are is all of it
going on YouTube. Is it all recorded? Yeah, >> every single one. >> Yeah. And then maybe this has been asked already but like continuity if there's a
track let's say vision and OCR is is there an attempt to make uh there be like a consistent level of depth or like like sometimes there's repeat subject matter between uh subsequent speakers
and obviously if if if you're going for you know the YouTube experience maybe having it self-contained in 25 minutes is the best experience but how do you think of like weaving a common thread in
like a 4 hour block? Uh I we do actually I I um in previous AIES I would have I would manually do it of like try to sequence and cluster topics together. Uh Jazelle was here. She was in the MCP
block of the context engineering track, right? They're all MCP and I I sequence them so they like kind of like se segue into each other because I know the the content of every single talk. Um
sometimes it's just impossible if the speaker cannot come in the morning. They have work. Mhm. >> What are you going to do? [laughter] >> So, you try very very hard to have this
pristine, beautiful schedule and then people have lives. >> Yeah, >> it's very annoying. I need them to not have lives. I need them to just come
here and only do this. But unfortunately, this just not realistic. Um, so, uh, you know, uh, we we we basically try to optimize, but I think you're right in that YouTube standalone
is the format to optimize for. I can craft a narrative with my playlist, which I I set up playlist for every single track that nobody uses. So, I do it, but
[laughter] >> Eric for number two. >> Yep. Um, so appreciated the new engineer orientation this year. I haven't been the last. You liked it?
>> Yeah. But I feel like it could have been more thorough. Um, it kind of hit a couple highlights, but like the next day I still wasn't sure if lunch was going to be served or uh like how to manage
the schedule and things like that. So, >> you know, again, >> we can improve this >> in the context everything is great, but like
>> that was one thing that still felt a little bit uh like I could have used some more information before Monday morning hit. >> I think again this is related to the
previous comment about how next year we will not grow. We will see the same venue, same location, same time, same everything. So that we have a year to like to prepare y
>> and we now have 7,000 people who have been through this. >> Yep. >> So uh I think that we just need to optimize our processes. This year my
team was just keep like struggling to already organize the actual days. Having an extra load to organize NEO was was a you know was was an undertaking that I think I underestimated. I really wanted
more onboarding and in instead it became more networking and it's fine. It's just not not full on boarding. We had an attendee guide that we put together. I don't think most people saw it. It's
online. >> Okay. Yeah. I didn't see that one. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. again, >> we send a lot of emails and not everyone
reads the emails. >> No, I mean this is a tiny little >> No, I I I appreciate that and and I mean uh you know Justin over there is a first- timer and like I I'm sure he
could have used better onboarding. I don't know if you went to our NEO the new new engineer onboarding. Yes. No, you did. Yeah. Uh so like uh the NEO came out of this kind of feedback
session at the last conference, right? Right. And then we were like, "Okay, well, we went from zero orientation to a little bit and like I think the next one will will get a lot better." But yeah, I
I um I didn't know some of the answers that you some of the questions that you had questions for anyway. So, uh it's this process of discovery, I guess. >> Yeah. Just one small piece of feedback.
So, >> thank you. Yeah. >> Kevin, I want you to say something Andy. you've you've been to [snorts] many of these.
>> So, um, sorry, I joined late, so it may be that >> Q&A FnB. Yeah. >> Right. Right. It may be that some of the questions, some of the things that I
point out have already been pointed out. So, sorry for that. Um, but it does kind of segue into one of the things that I have is that >> I feel as if though there were so many
talks and so many interesting sessions that I wanted to be in that at some point I kind of just gave up. I'm like, okay, I can just watch them at home. Y >> and like part of it makes sense. Sure.
Like I cannot be in two places at once. Um so it was going to happen anyways. >> Yeah. >> But I do really enjoy the part of talking to the speaker afterwards and
being able to ask questions and and and know more about that. And so I feel like I lose that >> and it kind of feels that like that sense of okay, I'm already missing two
talks, so why not just stay in the expo? >> Why not miss all of them, right? Why not miss all of them kind of thing? It's like I'm I'm going to have to sit down and watch them at like 2x when I'm when
I'm home. So it's it's okay. So, it's one of those things where it'd be nice to have them a bit more maybe less, right? But more quality or something like that. I don't know. Like the
quality was good. That's the that's the thing. Uh it's just yeah, I felt overwhelmed if that makes sense. >> So, uh I think what I hear is anxiety, right? FOMO, anxiety,
>> and it's something I do want to manage. At the same time, it's also just a high class problem. We have an embarrassment of riches. We happen to be in a golden age of AI and we have, you know, too
much food at our table. Oh no. Um, you know, the food doesn't spoil. It it lives online on on YouTube. Uh, again, so like um am I is that like that is important to me, but is it the most
important thing to me? Probably not because I think you have coping mechanisms um which you you handle just fine. Yeah. um does uh we have other formats of AIE
where there is no there's only one track right >> that's what the summit is it's only one track so you can attend a track or not attend a track there is no other track
and I think that's very simple um that's not what the world fair is fair is the big show >> gota >> and we want to create the space for
everyone to show their the best work of the year and if they want to go to a more dedicated summit they can to they can but this is where everyone shows their best Got it. Got it.
>> Um, what else should I say about that? Um, and you know, if we were covering finance or real estate or healthcare or something like that's fine. You know, we're covering the fastest moving fields
ever. And so, you should be a little bit uh uncomfortable, right? So, if you're completely comfortable, you're probably not being pushed,
>> right? You're probably falling asleep during the talks. Yeah, [laughter] >> fair enough. And then I don't know if anyone touched on the app itself. >> Uh there were a couple comments. Uh do
you like it or hate it? >> Um I have mixed feelings. So there's there's [laughter] Yeah, I I can't say I'm fully satisfied. Not not going to lie. And obviously I'm
going to point out all the bad, but take into account this is within the context of >> it mostly worked. >> It mostly worked. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
But things like for example on Android it crashed multiple times. Like it just if you enter and then exit and try to enter it again, it just at least for me it just crashed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> For no reason. Um, if you enter a talk to see the details of that talk and you go back, you get a loading screen for like several seconds. >> Yeah.
>> What's it jump to the top, >> right? Oh, that I didn't didn't jump to the top for me. Holy moly, that's even worse. But I don't know what's loading >> for for you. It it jumps to the you lose
your position and scroll. Okay. >> Right. Um, you sometimes get the loading screen as well when you're just scrolling down, which I assume is just like fetching more talks from the
server, but it's like, can you not pre-do that while I'm scrolling, right? Like it feels it feels very 2015. >> So, we we we Yeah. Okay. Uh, but keep going.
>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the my schedule um screen, I would expect it to be very similar to the regular like schedule, just like a filtered down version of the event, but I can still
search, I can still filter. I can't do that. Uh not only that, the my schedule tab you scroll from the top like from the very first day even though all those other talks have already ended you still
have to scroll through all of them to get to today whereas that doesn't happen on the regular like all sessions kind of kind of tab. >> Okay.
>> Yeah. Do you want me to keep going like there's a >> Yes, I do. Uh because all this is going straight to my uh my team so that we can we can fix it for next time.
>> Awesome. Awesome. um uh you can't save currently ongoing sessions to your schedule. So if there are multiple things going on live and that's happened to me. I'm like okay the let me look at
what's next and it just so happened to be one minute past you know the the time and so I couldn't save them. So it's like okay I want to go to these two let me save one and go to the other and I
couldn't do that. Um then there's also no syncing between the web and the app. I can't log in into the web. So if I went on the >> because they're different code bases.
Yeah. >> Right. Right. So, it would be super nice to have that so I can no matter what UI I I use, I see everything synced across. Yeah,
>> that's just nice to have. >> Um, for the booths, it's it just says booth >> like doesn't have a name. >> Yeah, it just says the title of whatever
they're doing, but then on the calendar icon and it doesn't have the address booth booth >> and it's like okay. And so some many of them on the message like when you
actually click, they've gone to the lengths of okay, we are at booth whatever blah blah blah. This is our company. but some haven't. So, it's like, "Oh, we're doing this thing." And
it's like, "But where?" You just don't know. There's no way to know. Um, so yeah, that's And then there were I I noticed there's a chat and a Q&A features within the the details. That's
super nice, but I don't think anyone's ever Yeah. >> used any of them. So, maybe something you can just remove. >> Um, then the filters themselves, not too
cool because when you open the filters, it just I think it just loads like a bunch of the companies. And so for you to actually >> it's unoptimized. Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um and then maybe a nice to have would be potentially like a matching system. But this is very nice to have something
where it's like I'm interested in seeing people >> who are similar to me and I want to talk to them potentially or I want to meet more founders or I want to maybe meet
people from like big tech that kind of thing where it's like he's the recommended people you could talk to. the leadership track had a a prototype basically of our matching system that we
set up. Uh and we basically built a Facebook where we sort of deep research every leadership attendee uh and and sort of sent that out. Um we I want to invest more in that direction because
I've seen it work in other conferences. I've never seen the chat work. Uh so yeah, I agree with that. Long story short, that is a v that is an external vendor that we that we purchase. Uh and
next year I want to rip it out and do our own. >> Got it. >> Right. So, uh, to the extent that you've seen, uh, the website, this one is this
one is controlled by me. Um, and we have the we have the sort of canvas like thing and we have the performance. >> The website's super nice. Like it's much
easier to navigate. >> Yay, this is me. [laughter] So, so I I I'm somewhat trying to build confidence as an organizer of that we that we not just organize the events,
but we also do the event technology which are completely separate uh disciplines effectively. It's not like I'm I am an engineer. It is just that this is a design thing that I wanted to
completely uh collect the specs. So everything that you just reported, we were recording this session. Those become the the sort of requirements document for me to do next year's thing.
>> Fantastic. Fantastic. I know I threw a whole bunch of things at you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that you can probably find Yeah, you can probably find my email if you have more that
you'd think about later. Uh Swix at AI engineer. Uh yeah, we want to hear all this and and build a like you know engineers deserve a good app. Uh that said uh like I said before to other
people. Um we have always open sourced our data. So if you wanted to vibe code your own you could you could have done that >> and and that's a great thing by the way
like I wish more like events did that cuz it's like >> because why should you like Yeah. I always say like I have never liked a conference app that I that anyone else
made. I just like the one that I make and I I assume it's the same for every attendee. Just to extend on that last idea, you can gamify it and put it like the
marketplace where people can upload their application. [laughter] >> This is it. This is everybody that submitted. There's only three uh four.
That's it. There's not that many submissions. >> There's opportunity to grow. [laughter] Hey Sean, thanks again for doing this. As you know, um I work for a nonprofit
in the sports industry, so um we don't have a lot of money, but we do choose to invest pretty heavily in getting here every year. I've done it for four years now. Um
>> thanks for coming back and bringing your team. >> Yeah. So I maybe I'll start with that. Um there are is at least one organization that treats this as part of
our annual clock tick. This is the investment that we make in our team. We spend tens of thousands of dollars to bring our people here because of you. So for all the feedback and all this kind
of thing that you're going to get that's constructive like thanks for making it all happen. It goes beyond just the the content and the things that are here and the
speakers. This is actually how we invest in our team. So thanks for being uh sort of a pivotal part in that. >> I have a related so persuant to the word invest. I have a related suggestion but
I want to I want to hear your feedback first. Um and just the way that we approach that is like when when we come here, we actually um also get together a month before to prepare for being here.
>> Yes. That's what I want in every team. >> Yep. So we've created our own little internal level up summit to make sure that everyone is here to get the most out of the time that we're together. Um
and then when we're here, it is like we rent a suite, we get beer and pizza every night, and we basically hack on the things that we heard and learned during the day. So just recognize that
it's different than what you see inside these four walls. Uh there's a lot of other stuff that at least one organization is doing with it. So thanks for being part of it. Um I just want to
applaud the part where you were u the leadership track is significantly better this year really >> has been previously. Um like content fantastic I think. Um
>> voice opinion of one. Can you can you call out uh sessions that you felt like made it? >> Um not in particular, but they um in previous years it has felt more salesy
or um hungry for relevance and uh we have people who are just legitimately doing awesome things who are able to get up and talk and speak credibly about it. Um I I was just very impressed by that
and it's actually it is more than opinion of one. I heard that from several other people as well. >> Can I just say [clears throat] um I had nothing to do with that. I cannot take
credit for any of it. It is simply that we are we have been around longer therefore people have heard of us therefore they come forward. It's all inbound. We didn't really I mean I
solicited some of them >> but most of it it is people stepping up saying I have something to share. >> Yeah. >> Because we've been around enough that
like we're established now. >> Yeah. Well something must be working right for that to happen. Um in the I think the very first year there was some kind of birds of a feather concept where
you would sort of set >> Yeah. table topics. Yeah. Table topics. That's right. And it sound kind of similar to what you were talking about maybe doing in the future as part of the
leadership track or a second content uh expo area. >> Oo. Uh [clears throat] maybe >> the idea of going and participating.
>> Yeah. >> And not rather than just listening to participate >> time place on a topic uh is >> I mean it's like what it is is
unconference, right? Have you >> have you been to one? Do you like it? >> Um it's been a decade or something but yeah. So [clears throat] people want us to do an unconference. The problem is I
worry that we don't sell tickets. If >> you come and you don't have any speakers but yourselves. >> Yeah. I I wouldn't go if that was it. I'm just saying that like
there's room in there. Uh I would find that compelling at some point to wrap as a a thing a niche. >> Yes. Uh yeah. >> May maybe it's different from what you
were envisioning with the cont. look like um okay especially for the leaders we do actually want maybe next year maybe the year after I don't know to do a dedicated leadership retreat uh like
only leadership go away to like a some Napa or something and sit down for a weekend uh to me there I can do the unconference there I can do the off off the record chats I think there will be a
market for that um yeah I mean but at these things content is king we want to get as much good work online as possible um well produced with with these guys and uh for you to meet the speakers in
person. >> Yeah. Uh the the last thing I was going to share is um and you don't really have to react to this, but just um over the years of you know for a long time we've
had things like South by Southwest that started out scrappy and with a certain vibe and eventually the the ratio of >> uh sport coats to hoodies started to take over and that will naturally happen
in in every place that becomes successful like this. Um a little bit of me is going to be sad when that happens. So I I really appreciate the heart and soul that you put into all this. Do you
don't you notice it's gotten more uh chill? I I So, okay though, uh my index for this >> I don't think it's happened yet. >> My index for this is number of people
wearing costumes, >> right? We had two orcs. >> Yeah. >> Walking around. >> Okay. We had a guy in a T-Rex suit.
>> We had the mother duck ducks outside. I don't know if you saw saw the ducks. Uh we had a we had a shark. Um, so the the the the costume index, there's been three Worlds Fair. The costume index was
two in the first World's Fair, zero in the last year, and then now it's like nine. Um, so I think we're going in the right direction. We had I mean, okay, then we get a bunch of free costumes
with the the flash mob. Did you see the flash mob? >> I didn't. Oh my god. Uh, yeah. Anyway, I want to be I told uh Eve, we had Eve, the head of design for Y Combinator,
speak at the design track. I was like, I want to be the conference where you would do things that would be unprofessional in the other ones, but it fits here because it has the community
vibe because you can be yourself. >> That's fantastic. >> Uh so yeah, I mean to some extent like you know I will not run AIE forever. Uh but I think if we set the community
expectation um that uh you know that that this is what we do. It's like Comic-Con. Comic-Con has like you know there still you still have people it hasn't been
taken over by the suits and I think that is important. We do still want to serve the suits. I think there's a there's a place for them. Uh but there's you know a floor of the Mosone separating the
suits from the here. [laughter] I think that's okay. Yeah. Um what else can I say about that? Vibe and culture. I think um one of the most important things in our
CFP application uh the application to speak is we have all these tracks that we are interested in but the last thing in the track is my talk is weird and doesn't fit and I always want to be have
a place for weird stuff and so um Eric Meyer's talk from last night came from came from that John Auster's stuff came from that sometimes you just have a you really want to just share and it doesn't
fit yet, but if it's cool, uh we'll try to give it a platform and a place. Uh kind of on that note, I had a question about uh speakers. So that's why I'm here. I think that the speakers, the
quality of speakers you are able to assemble here is amazing. Um I I applied my whole team as speakers and so like five applications total and I was I was accepted for the remote track and I
guess in short I'm I'm a little bit almost like buttth hurt that my teammates who we work in spatial reasoning and have a a a product for home builders that just raised series C
where we have uh paying customers using novel computer vision and uh spatial intelligence tools that are um the first time that's been done in architecture. And I wanted to ask like in in the
applications like these guys who I I submitted their applications. They're not Twitter famous. Um they're not from Silicon Valley. They're architects turned PhD machine learning engineers.
How can I better like tell their story in the application to get a better chance of them getting picked up to speak on that stuff? >> Uh uh so again I'm sorry for not uh that
we can't select everybody. Um you were weightlisted or you were selected for online. Uh let's for online. Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh so uh you know we we had two 2200 applications for effectively 300
spots. >> Um and all of those 300 spots we had to we also invited people. It's not just all uh people that come in through the CFP. So
basically it's very very competitive. We can't accept everybody that like does meaningful work because there there's just there's too many. Um I will say I think um being somewhat frontier being
uh uh being unique in the application um that happens to tie it to a broader trend that we can tell um does help it more. I don't know if um I don't know if that directly applies
to your situation. Yeah. Because basically there there's a lot of like early stage companies that have re revenue that h they have innovative things and we only have 10 talks in the
vision track. >> Yeah. >> Right. And some of that immediately goes to people with proprietary models like the perceptron talk uh that we have
there. Uh and some of them goes go to leading companies that are somewhat Twitter famous because that puts that puts butts in seats. >> Yeah.
>> Then we have some leftover for >> well people who like let's let's see how they do. >> Uhhuh. So, the better you can guarantee the review committee, I'm on every
committee, but then uh I work with uh reviewers that that we trust, usually past speakers, um to to to vet and and and vote on on who should be in. Um if you can guarantee that this will be a
banger basically. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh then that would be great. Uh that's why we often that's why that's why um applications are not blind. We do
encourage you to submit prior talks. >> Yeah. and we do watch the talks >> and if we go this guy is really goddamn good, we'll fight for you. >> That's what I was going to ask too. So
it like let's say for next year that's a good goal to try and like just >> have have talks recorded at other meetups, other conferences >> and like some proof of like even if it
it doesn't have a thousand views doesn't matter. Yeah. >> But like I watch you like you're com you're you're you know how to do a good conference talk. We have that quality
filter here. It's a it's a very high bar to be here. Yes. It's a lossy bar. Like some people get through that should not get through. I know. >> Um but mostly we're known for having a
very high bar. So try to just remove all doubt that you meet that bar >> and you'll be in. >> Awesome. Thanks a lot. Anybody else? Um so uh first of all I want to just
thank you because I am attending because I um submitted a demo to the ACM agents project uh agents and um agentic systems conference and uh we're able to um and I I I wanted to just comment that I think
it's great that you were able to um provide access to this conference for students and for academics and people who are kind of doing that. Um >> thank you. The more you can do that, I
think the better because a lot of the people who were in that when I was attending that meeting, a lot of the people who were there were just these young, brighteyed, really excited people
who are just starting their careers. They're doing some really interesting stuff from a conceptual point of view. And I I think that um having a little bit more of that in the community may
also be just a good you know um catalyst to get things moving to kind of get things get >> Yeah. Um thank you for saying that. Uh I was this is the first year that we've
done the poster sessions um so AIE was started kind of in opposition to new CML clear uh because we basically wanted to do everything that they don't do. for example, don't cut off submissions six
months before the the conference date because that guarantees everything's out of date. Um, but we want to bring academ academic academia to industry uh in the same way that Nurus brings industry to
academia and I think uh there is a lot of synergy there. Kais was just the easiest to work with by far. Uh so we have this partnership. It's very it's been very successful. We've been invited
back to Kais and Kais has been invited back to us. So we keep going. Um I think the the just the question is like well okay this one we just use KAS as our selection process right we didn't do any
selection whatsoever we're just like we just outsource it but at some point we're going to have a peer review process um I've been introduced to the ACM presidents uh do we start publishing
our own journal to give people a publication spot I think to some extent um I like that we are not accredited because that means that nobody breaks any exclusivity rules by presenting here
because they can just double present event. If they're already in the Bay Area, that's good. Uh if they just want to double dip on their work, uh and present in front of an industry
audience, that's good. Uh and yes, I like the the energy of the students. Uh because a lot of people actually want to hire them. Uh so, uh Worlds Fair is basically the only place I can do this
because I have the real estate. Uh and so we'll we'll try to do it more, but I I think it was relatively successful this time. >> Absolutely. Thank you.
Uh that might be it. We have the AIE Singapore team that just came in. Uh they also did the networking app. Some of you asked about the networking app. It's him. Uh it's it's Sharina Grim. Uh
otherwise I think that is it. I'm going to call it and I have to go and do the startup battlefield. But thank you so much for coming. Come back next year. Hey