How the sessions work

A keynote is one speaker and one substantial idea, delivered tightly. Speakers build a clear “what is, what could be” arc on minimal, image-led slides, and the clock gives them no room to warm up.

The big rooms reward range over depth. An informed non-specialist in the back row should be able to follow the whole way through, which makes keynotes the safest thing to walk into when a track is not yours.

A Use Case is a real and usually unpublished AI deployment, presented with genuine figures by the two organisations that delivered it. What was built, what it cost, what went wrong, and what it returned.

You always hear both sides: the client explains the rationale and what changed, the builder explains how it was done. That is why nobody presents this format alone — a single company describing the merits of its own product is a pitch, and we move it out.

Expect before-and-after numbers rather than phrases like “significantly improved efficiency”. It is the closest thing on the programme to seeing someone else's invoice.

A panel is a moderated discussion on a single theme, with three to five experts and a moderator who is also a speaker rather than a neutral host.

Panellists are cast to hold different and sometimes opposing views — the disagreement is the point, not an accident of scheduling. A sequence of mini-keynotes, or four people agreeing with each other, is a failed panel and we programme against it.

The moderator keeps the framing tight and gives the room as much question time as the clock allows.

A fireside is a short, close interview with no deck and no staging. The host does the work and draws out a story or a position the guest would not put into a keynote.

It ends on a takeaway rather than a summary of someone's career. If it needs slides, it is a keynote — that is the line we hold.

A debate takes one contested question and puts opposing sides in front of an audience. It is a genuine confrontation over a sharp provocation, not a panel where everyone converges by minute thirty.

The moderator opens the motion and frames the stakes, then runs rounds in which speakers face off head to head. The format rotates between rounds so the tension resets, and closes on a synthesis.

You vote before and after. At the end the room can see whether the debate changed any minds — including yours.

A demo is live, working AI on stage, and at its strongest the audience uses the product themselves. Real current capability with a visible result within seconds — never a promotional reel, and never a pre-recorded video presented as live.

Speakers are asked to state the problem and show the result by about the five-minute mark, then open it up. Many hand the room a link with credits or tokens so you can test the thing on your own machine while they talk, so it is worth arriving with a laptop.

The workshop is the practical layer of the programme. Participants build with real tools and leave with something they can use: a repository, a template, a working prototype, or a checklist.

At least 60% of the slot is you working while the leader circulates. The first hands-on moment comes within about ten minutes, so a workshop is not somewhere to arrive late.

Workshop rooms are small and run first come, first served — there is no sign-up and no attendee list, so arrive early. The prerequisites and the level, whether beginner, practitioner or advanced, are published in each session description: read them before you commit the whole slot.