AI Engineer Sydney 2026

• Hilton Hotel, Sydney

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The era defining conference comes to Sydney

The Sydney edition of the world's leading AI Engineer conference — two days focused on what actually matters: building production LLM systems, tooling that works, evaluation frameworks, safety considerations, and shipping AI-native products.

Join AI engineers, software engineers, CTOs, and VPs of AI who are solving these problems right now. Melbourne sold out weeks in advance with hundreds disappointed, so don't wait — secure your spot.

Shawn (Swyx) Wang at the top of a ski lift with A snow-coloured volcano in the background.

I've looked up to Web Directions for a long time as one of the highest quality technical conference organizers in the world. As we grow AI Engineer as the premier technical event for AI practitioners, we're beyond excited to work with John and Web Directions to bring AI Engineering to ANZ!

Our 2026 Tracks

AI Engineer Sydney features three tracks, AI Engineering, SWE and agentic coding, and a specialised AI leadership track. There will also be the return of our popular hallway track, featuring invited speakers and partner presentations.

AI Engineering

Designed for practitioners building AI systems and applications in production this track explores novel architectures and system designs, from innovative approaches to RAG and agent pipelines to real-world case studies backed by production metrics.

Sessions will cover open source launches, major tool releases, and the hard technical problems teams are solving in the field—including integration patterns, infrastructure challenges, and lessons learned at scale.

SWE and agentic coding

For software engineers evolving their practice using AI coding tools. We'll cover how AI is transforming the entire software development lifecycle—from productivity hacks that save hours daily to real examples of AI-assisted development in action.

Sessions will explore when AI tools work brilliantly, when they fall short, and how to integrate them effectively into your process, whether you're working solo or on a team.

AI Leadership

Exclusively for senior technical leaders defining AI strategy at scale—CTOs, VPs of AI, AI Architects at large organizations, and the most senior AI decision-makers at their companies.

Sessions will tackle the strategic challenges of building and scaling AI engineering organizations: defining and executing AI strategy, build vs. buy decisions for AI infrastructure, organizational transformations, compensation structures and career ladders for AI roles, and navigating compliance and legal considerations.

A third day to go deeper

Workshops

December 9th 2026

AI Engineer Sydney will feature a dedicated day of hands-on workshops — the day after the conference, on December 9th. Put into practice what you've learnt over the two days of the conference, led by experts to broaden your knowledge and get you up to speed with the latest technologies and techniques.

Learn more

Hackathon

Friday 4 and Saturday 5 December 2026

Most hackathons end on the day. This one ends on the world stage — our finalists pitch at AI Engineer Sydney on the Monday, to 800 engineers, founders and AI leaders, and a global audience on the AI Engineer YouTube channel.

Friday evening and Saturday. It’s free, fully catered, but places are genuinely limited.

RSVP now

Road to AI Engineer

Aug – Dec 2026 · Sydney · Melbourne · Brisbane

Join us on the road to AI Engineer with Homebrew Agents Club, AI Engineering Nights and Unconferences, running across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the lead up to AI Engineer Sydney and AI Week.

All free, fully catered and fantastic. RSVP now — places will go quickly.

Learn more

AI Week logo

December 6–13 2026

AI Week brings together the people building with AI—engineers training models, software developers and AI engineers, researchers pushing boundaries, designers creating AI-native experiences, and product leaders shipping AI-powered products. Come to Sydney to connect with your peers, explore what's working (and what's not), and discover where this technology is actually heading. If AI is central to your work, this is where you need to be.

learn more

Past events

AI Engineer is the Australian edition of the renowned AI Engineer conference series. Our first edition was in Melbourne in June 2026.

Speakers

Featuring speakers from

  • Google
  • Canva
  • Atlassian
  • AWS
  • Deloitte

More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

What they said about Melbourne

Ron Au

“It's 10 out of 10 for AI Engineer, it's 10 out of 10 for Web Directions and John Allsopp.”

Ron Au, Senior Software Engineer, Canva

Find your AI Engineer Sydney pass

Registration is open, and tickets are selling faster than they have for any event we’ve ever hosted. Don’t miss out—secure your seat for December 7th & 8th at the Hilton Sydney.

Booking with an AI assistant? It can find passes, current prices and a booking link at register.webdirections.org/llms.txt.

Special pricing

We have special pricing for people working in digital agencies, not-for-profits, people working in education, juniors, and anyone funding their own ticket. It’s an honour system. Just choose the ticket type that applies to you.

Ticket type:

In person · 2 days

Conference

$1,195until 9 Oct

  • Keynotes
  • Two dedicated tracks
  • Networking Reception
  • Videos post-conference, on-demand
  • Fully catered

Next $1,395 · 10 OctThen $1,595 · 21 Nov

Register

In person · 3 days

Conference + Workshop Day

$1,695until 9 Oct

  • Keynotes
  • Two dedicated tracks
  • Networking Reception
  • Videos post-conference, on-demand
  • Fully catered
  • Plus the Workshop Day — 9 December

Next $1,895 · 10 OctThen $2,095 · 21 Nov

Register

In person · 2 days

Leadership

$1,795until 9 Oct

  • Exclusive Leadership track
  • VIP Keynote seating
  • Access to all other tracks
  • Speaker Dinner
  • Networking Reception
  • Videos post-conference, on-demand
  • Fully catered

Next $1,995 · 10 OctThen $2,195 · 21 Nov

Register

In person · 3 days

Leadership + Workshop Day

$2,195until 9 Oct

  • Exclusive Leadership track
  • VIP Keynote seating
  • Access to all other tracks
  • Speaker Dinner
  • Networking Reception
  • Videos post-conference, on-demand
  • Fully catered
  • Plus the Workshop Day — 9 December

Next $2,395 · 10 OctThen $2,595 · 21 Nov

Register

In person · 1 day

Workshop Day only

$795until 9 Oct

  • Workshop Day — 9 December
  • A full day of hands-on, practical workshops
  • Fully catered

Next $895 · 10 OctThen $995 · 21 Nov

Register

Online · 2 days

Streaming

$495until 9 Oct

  • Live stream — all sessions
  • Live chat and Q&A
  • Videos post-conference, on-demand

Next $595 · 10 OctThen $695 · 21 Nov

Register

Teams of 5+

Conference

$995

per person

Conference + Workshop Day

$1,495

per person

Team passes

Bring your team to AI Engineer Sydney

Book five or more Conference passes for $995 per person, or Conference + Workshop Day passes for $1,495 per person. You’ll save $200 on every ticket—and for every five tickets booked, one attendee receives a complimentary upgrade to the corresponding Leadership Pass.

Build your team pass

Want the latest updates?

Get news on speakers, schedule and program updates as they land.

The Conffab streaming experience.

Online · 2 days

Watch live from anywhere

Can’t make it to Sydney? A standalone streaming pass gives you every conference session live, plus chat and Q&A.

Every session is also available on demand after the conference.

Get a streaming pass

In the heart of Sydney

Hilton Sydney

AI Engineer Sydney 2026 will take place December 7th & 8th at the Hilton Hotel, Sydney.

  • Central CBD location with rail, light rail and bus connections close by.
  • Stay at the Hilton or choose from the many hotels and serviced apartments nearby.
The Hilton Sydney

AI Engineer, for agents too

Send your agent to the conference

We’re building AI Engineer Sydney so your agent can do more than find the homepage. Ask whether this is the right conference for you, which speakers and talks matter to your work, what pass makes sense, and what it will cost. Your agent can come back with a useful answer, its sources and a ready-to-use booking link.

And once the conference starts, AgentPass by Conffab gives agents a way to attend on your behalf—following the live captions and screens across rooms, noticing what matters to you, and bringing back the parts worth knowing.

See what your agent can do Explore AgentPass

Partners

Keen to partner with us? Drop us a line—we’d love to talk more.

Partners currently announced for Sydney include:

Premium Partner

Sentry logo

Exhibiting Partners

Auth0 logo
Cloudflare logo
Dam Secure logo
Databricks logo
Deloitte logo
Sonar logo

Jobs

Roles from our partners who are hiring AI engineers, ML specialists, and the people who build the platforms behind them. Find a role that fits and apply directly.

Job listings coming soon.

The organisers

About the organisers

Web Directions

For more than 20 years Web Directions has brought together the people building the web and digital products. Our conferences are known for rigorous programs, generous hospitality and conversations that continue long after the final session.

AI Engineer Sydney brings that experience together with the global AI Engineer community.

Crowd at a conference.
Portait of John Allsopp.

John Allsopp

John Allsopp founded Web Directions and has spent nearly 30 years helping shape how the web is designed and built. His writing helped inspire Responsive Web Design, and his tools helped establish modern web typography.

He curates programs around practical ideas, candid conversations and the people moving the field forward.

A conference for everyone

Code of Conduct

Everyone deserves a welcoming, inspiring and safe conference. Our code of conduct applies to attendees, speakers, partners and organisers.

If something concerns you, please tell us. We will take it seriously.