San Francisco, California--(Newsfile Corp. - March 11, 2025) - The AI Conference, a vendor-neutral event produced by Shon and Courtney Burton (founders of MLconf) and Ben Lorica, PhD (technical advisor to Databricks, principal at Gradient Flow and host of the Data Exchange Podcast), has announced the opening of speaker applications for its September 2025 conference as well as a new talk track. First convened in 2023 as an in-person forum for sharing ideas, innovation, and the challenges of modern AI. In 2024, the conference featured Mark Chen, vice president of research at OpenAI; Konstantina Christakopoulou, senior research engineer at Google DeepMind; Joe Spisak, product director for generative AI at Meta; and 49 additional senior technical executives. This year, The AI Conference will run September 17-18, including a pre-conference hack day on the 16th.
Shon Burton, co-founder of the conference, noted that this year's event will be "the year of agents," introducing a new talk track to spotlight agentic AI systems in production use.
The 2025 event will feature four talk tracks:
- Builders Track: Hands-on tools, frameworks, and development insights.
- Frontiers Track: Cutting-edge AI research, new models, and future predictions.
- Strategy Track: AI ethics, leadership, and business integration.
- Applied AI (new): Real-world AI case studies, industry implementations, and AI-agent development and integration.
Mark Chen, Chief Researcher at OpenAI, speaking at The AI Conference, 2024
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10129/243434_ad7d1691249adb9f_001full.jpg
A Vendor-Neutral Exchange of Current and Future AI Evolutions
Burton and his cofounders created The AI Conference to address a perceived lack of transparency and open exchange among AI events-many of which are hosted by major vendors in a sales-driven environment. While networking remains a key component, the conference is designed primarily as a forum for pure knowledge exchange.
The AI Conference brings together top minds from small open-source projects and startups, venture capital firms, and leading technical executives from the world's largest tech companies. The event aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by transforming state-of-the-art research into actionable, real-world applications.
Although vendor-neutral, the conference recognizes the critical role that commercialization plays in advancing innovative AI technologies for the greater societal good. This message has resonated with audiences, as the event hosted more than 1,000 guests in 2022, over 2,000 in 2023, and now expects well over 2,800 attendees in 2025.
New Talk Track Announced and Speaker Applications Now Open
Reflecting the most salient developments in contemporary AI, The AI Conference has added a talk track focused on the rise and applications of AI agents. In the Applied Deep Dive track, speakers will explore the technical details and user applications of agentic AI systems-including how these systems will transform industries by automating decision-making, workflows, and consumer & business-facing experiences.
Ticket sales for returning guests are now open, and applications for potential speakers across all tracks are being accepted. AI experts, researchers and practitioners are encouraged to apply. The selection process is rigorous; although approximately 85-100 speaker slots are available, more than 300 applications have been received, resulting in an acceptance rate of roughly 3%.
Fireside chat at 2024's The AI Conference with Peter Norvig (Director of Research at Google), and Dr. Alfred Spector (Visiting Scholar at MIT)
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10129/243434_ad7d1691249adb9f_002full.jpg
Conference Details
The conference will run for two and a half days and will feature an exclusive networking event and cocktail hour, AI After Dark, on the evening of Sept. 17. All sessions will be recorded and made available to attendees afterward.
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Dates: Sept. 17-18, 2025 (including a complimentary preconference Hack Day on the 16th)
• Expected Attendance: Over 3,000 AI leaders, developers and executives
• Past Speakers: Technical executives and researchers and governmental bodies.
For updates, interested speakers and attendees can follow @theaiconference on X and visit the event website.
Media Inquiries:
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/243434