Overview
QCon AI New York 2026 is a two day in person conference designed for senior software engineers, software architects, staff engineers, and engineering leaders who build AI powered production systems. The event runs December 15–16, 2026 at The Westin Jersey City Newport in Jersey City, NJ, just a PATH ride from Lower Manhattan. The program is curated by a committee of senior practitioners and focuses on real world production AI challenges rather than product pitches.
Agenda
The conference covers agent runtime design, context engineering, evaluation and observability, tool access, zero trust security for agents, and the economics of inference including latency and cost. The agenda highlights a practitioner-led format with sessions that deep dive into state ownership, replay and recovery of long running agents, and the boundaries needed to keep tool use secure and auditable. Topics include agent state management, context propagation, evaluation strategies, observability of AI systems, and cost aware architectures. The two day schedule features talks, panel style discussions, and knowledge sharing centered on production reliability rather than demos.
Format
Senior practitioner led and curated by a program committee. The program emphasizes real-world production experiences, transparent discussions about what worked and what did not, and clear separation between editorial content and vendor pitches. Attendees participate in sessions, workshops, and interactive discussions designed to help them bring patterns back to their teams. The venue is The Westin Jersey City Newport, offering convenient access with onsite registration and a hotel stay in the same building to minimize travel between talks and networking.
Speakers
Speakers include Hien Luu, QCon AI New York 2026 Conference Chair, a Senior AI/ML leader and software architect; Faye Zhang, Wes Reisz, Cassandra Shum, Fabiane Nardon, Ian Thomas, Meryem Arik, Shuman Ghosemajumder, and other program committee members. Presentations focus on practical guidance for engineering leaders responsible for production AI systems, including governance, security, and operational concerns, rather than pure product pitches.
Who should attend
This conference is aimed at senior software engineers, software architects, staff+ engineers, ML and MLOps engineers, platform engineers, security engineers, and engineering leaders who own or influence production AI decisions. Attendees will gain actionable patterns they can apply to their own production AI environments, including how to manage agent runtime, context, evaluations, security, and cost considerations in live systems.
FAQs
Questions around pricing, transferability, refunds, and group discounts are addressed in the program materials. Attendees can learn about transfer options up to December 11, 2026, and group discounts for larger teams with details published by the organizers. The event emphasizes a no hidden product pitches ethos and strives to deliver substantial, applicable content for practitioners managing AI in production.
