What are the AI Agent Events in 2026: The must-attend conferences for Agentic AI Builders
Manouk Draisma
Dec 29, 2025
AI agents are no longer demos stitched together with prompt chains. In 2026, agents are long-running systems: they plan, call tools, recover from failures, collaborate with other agents, and interact with real users and real data.
That shift changes what “good AI events” look like.
The most valuable AI agent conferences in 2026 are not the ones announcing bigger models. They’re the ones answering harder questions:
How do agents behave over time?
How do we test and simulate agent behavior before production?
How do we debug failures across multi-step plans?
How do we ship agents safely, reliably, and repeatedly?
This guide focuses on AI agent–relevant events in 2026, with a bias toward what actually helps teams shipping agentic systems.
Why AI Agent events changed
In 2024 and early 2025, most AI conferences were still model-centric. The big announcements were about new capabilities, benchmarks, and raw performance.
But teams building agentic systems learned something quickly:
agents don’t fail like models do.
They fail across time.
They fail through interactions.
They fail because small changes cascade into large behavioral shifts.
A new tool.
A slightly different prompt.
A longer conversation.
Suddenly the agent behaves differently — and no one can quite explain why.
So the conversations at serious AI events started to shift. Less about showcasing agents, more about understanding them. Less about demos, more about evaluation, simulation, and control.
That’s the lens this 2026 AI Agent Events calendar is built on.
Top developer-focused AI Events in 2026 (Global)
NVIDIA GTC 2026 — March 16–19, 2026
📍 San Jose, California, USA
The NVIDIA GTC has become one of the most important technical AI conferences in the world.
For developers, GTC stands out because it combines:
Hands-on labs and workshops
Certification programs in AI and accelerated computing
Deep dives into agentic AI, robotics, simulation, and infrastructure
Agentic systems show up here not as theory, but as workloads that must run efficiently and reliably. Pricing typically starts around $2,172, with workshops in the $195–$500 range.
If your agents interact with real-time systems, robotics, or large-scale inference, GTC is hard to beat.
AI DevWorld — February 18–20, 2026
📍 San Jose, California, USA
AI DevWorld is one of the few conferences explicitly designed for software engineers and data scientists.
The focus is practical:
Building intelligent agents
Designing RAG pipelines
Retrieval-augmented and tool-using systems
Understanding the modern AI tooling landscape
This is a strong choice if you want a broad but developer-oriented overview of how agentic and retrieval-based systems are actually being built in 2026.
AI Developer Conference by DeepLearning.AI — April 28–29, 2026
📍 San Francisco, California, USA
Hosted by Andrew Ng, the AI Developer Conference by DeepLearning.AI brings together more than 3,000 developers for hands-on learning.
The emphasis is on:
Practical AI skills
Designing agents for complex, long-horizon tasks
Applying modern ML techniques in real systems
This event tends to bridge fundamentals and application well — especially useful if you’re turning research ideas into working agent systems.
Agentic AI Summit — January 2026 (Virtual)
The Agentic AI Summit is a three-week, builder-focused virtual event dedicated entirely to autonomous AI agents.
With 50+ interactive workshops, it covers:
Agent architectures
Memory systems
Planning and orchestration
Scaling agentic systems
Modern agent frameworks
You also receive partner credits to start building immediately, which makes this event unusually practical for a virtual format.
European AI Events for Builders
AIE Europe — April 8–10, 2026
📍 Queen Elizabeth II Centre, London, UK
AIE Europe is one of the strongest European gatherings for AI engineers.
It brings together builders working on:
AI systems engineering
Agent pipelines
Production ML and LLM infrastructure
Compared to broader AI expos, AIE Europe leans more technical and builder-centric.
World Summit AI - 7 & 8 october 2026
📍 Amsterdam, Netherlands
World Summit AI is one of Europe’s largest AI events.
While it’s more business-focused overall, it consistently includes tracks on:
AI agents
Applied AI systems
Real-world deployment challenges
It’s useful for developers who want technical context plus exposure to how AI agents are discussed at organizational and policy levels in Europe.
RAISE - 2026 8 & 9 July 2026
📍 Paris, France
France’s flagship AI summit, RAISE, blends technical and strategic perspectives.
While not purely developer-focused, RAISE often features:
Technical discussions on AI deployment
Enterprise use cases
European approaches to AI systems and agents
It’s especially relevant if you’re operating or deploying AI in the European ecosystem.
US Events
AIE World’s Fair - June 29 – July 2, 2026
📍 Moscone West, San Francisco, USA
The US edition of the AI Engineer conference series, AIE World’s Fair, is expected to be one of the most hands-on AI engineering events of the year.
You can expect:
Deep technical sessions
Agent development workshops
Practical discussions on deploying AI systems at scale
Ai4 — August 4–6, 2026
📍 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Ai4 is North America’s largest AI industry event.
While broad, it includes dedicated tracks on:
AI agents
Generative AI
Computer vision
Early registration is typically in the $1,100–$1,600 range. The main value here is seeing how agentic AI is absorbed into real enterprises, not just how it’s built.
HumanX 2026 — April 6–9, 2026
📍 Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA
HumanX leans more toward business and leadership, but it includes five specialized tracks that often touch on:
AI risk and trust
Human-in-the-loop systems
Responsible deployment of autonomous AI
Useful context if your agent systems interact closely with users.
AI Agent Conference — 2026
📍 New York City, USA
The AI Agent Conference is explicitly designed for builders at the forefront of the agentic AI movement.
Expect deep dives into:
Agent architectures
Breakthrough models
Practical system design for autonomous agents
This is one of the few conferences where agents are the main subject, not a side track.
A clear pattern across AI Developer Events in 2026
Across all these events, one theme keeps repeating:
AI agents are now treated as systems, not demos.
The most valuable conferences emphasize:
Hands-on learning
Architecture trade-offs
Evaluation and testing
Long-term behavior and reliability
If you’re choosing where to invest time and travel in 2026, prioritize events that help you build, debug, and trust agentic systems in production.
Final Thought
The best AI developer events in 2026 aren’t the loudest ones. They’re the ones that respect how hard it is to build AI systems that actually work.
If you’re serious about agentic AI, not just experimenting, but shipping, these are the conferences where the real work is happening. In the meantime, interested to learn what we will share on these events? Book a call with us.
