Early Bird Open · Save $100

Moving
Beyond
the AI Hype.

A working conference for leaders, technologists, and practitioners who are ready to stop speculating and focus on what actually works.

Date
September 10, 2026
Location
The Department at Hudson's · Detroit
Capacity
250 Attendees
Why Beyond Conf

Built for people doing the real work with AI.

Every session comes from someone who has shipped, scaled, or stopped an AI initiative. No vendor pitches. No hand-waving demos. Just the lessons that came from actually doing the thing.

01

Signal over hype

Speakers are vetted for real-world experience — they've launched, scaled, failed, or fixed. You leave with patterns you can apply on Monday, not vendor talking points.

02

Deeper than a keynote

Three focused tracks let you go wide or deep. Ethics & Compliance for the risk folks. Foundations for teams just starting. From Experience for teams already in production.

03

Detroit, on purpose

Hudson's in downtown Detroit is the venue — a brand-new space built for working events, not hotel-ballroom energy. Capped at 250 so the hallway conversations actually happen.

Four Tracks

Pick the one that sounds like your week.

Every ticket gets access to all four. Jump between them all day. Each session is 45 minutes — easy to drop into mid-track.

TRACK 01

Ethics & Sustainability

If you care about doing this right.

  • Bias & fairness in deployment
  • The real environmental cost of inference
  • Labor impact & responsibility
  • Internal AI policies people follow
TRACK 02

How It Works

If you want the mechanics, not the metaphors.

  • Tokenizers & context windows
  • How attention actually works
  • Embeddings in plain English
  • What an eval really measures
TRACK 03

From Experience

If it's already in production.

  • Agentic systems in the wild
  • RAG pipelines at scale
  • Retrospectives: projects we killed
  • Post-launch iteration patterns
TRACK 04

Looking Forward

If you want to know what's next.

  • Agents that actually execute
  • Models that reason out loud
  • Multimodal workflows in practice
  • Where we think this lands in 2027
Call for Proposals

You've done the work.
Now share it.

BeyondConf speakers are practitioners — people who've shipped AI in production, navigated the compliance landscape, or built the foundations their teams rely on. If that's you, we want to hear your story.

45 min
Session length
4
Tracks
Sep 10
Event date
Open tracks
Ethics & Sustainability
Morally and socially defensible AI. Bias, environmental cost, labor impact, human judgment.
How It Works
Tokenizers, attention, context windows, embeddings, evals. How these systems actually operate under the hood.
From Experience
Real post-launch war stories from teams already running AI. What broke, what scaled, what the vendor demos forgot to mention.
Looking Forward
Emerging patterns, research that's actually shipping, and hard bets on where this goes.
What we look for

Real deployments over demos. Specific lessons over general advice. Speakers from non-vendor organizations are especially encouraged.

The Day at a Glance

One focused day. Zero filler.

Doors open at 8:30 AM. The working day runs 9 AM to 6 PM, followed by an evening reception with the full speaker roster.

08:30 AM
Breakfast & Check-in
Continental breakfast. Badge pickup, early networking.
Farmer Reception
09:30 AM
Opening Keynote
Kicking off the day with a keynote on what it actually takes to ship AI.
Farmer
10:30 AM
Morning Track Sessions
Five parallel 45-min sessions across four tracks.
3rd Floor
12:15 PM
Lunch
Catered lunch with open seating.
Farmer
01:30 PM
Afternoon Track Sessions
Five parallel 45-min sessions across four tracks.
3rd Floor
03:15 PM
Second Afternoon Track Sessions
Five parallel 45-min sessions across four tracks.
3rd Floor
06:00 PM
Evening Reception
Full bar, heavy apps, and open access to the entire speaker roster.
Farmer Reception
Register

Secure your seat.

250 seats total. One day. No recordings — the full experience is only available in person.

Limited — 25 spots
Super Early Bird
$199
Ends May 29, 2026 · 25 spots

Our lowest price, ever. Full conference access including keynotes, all three tracks, breakfast, lunch, and the evening reception.

Sales Closed
Most Popular
Early Bird
$249
Ends Jun 30, 2026 · 225 spots

Full conference access including keynotes, all three tracks, breakfast, lunch, daily happy hours, and the evening reception.

Register Now →
5+ Attendees
Group
$249
Ends Sep 10, 2026 · 225 spots · Min 5–25 tickets

Bring your team. Same full access as the Conference pass — priced for groups of 5 or more from the same organization. Owl

Register Now →
Standard
Conference
$299
Ends Sep 10, 2026 · 200 spots

Full conference access including keynotes, all three tracks, breakfast, lunch, daily happy hours, and the evening reception.

Coming Soon

Questions? Email hello@beyondconf.com

Sponsors

Be part of something real.

Sponsorship packages available now. Get in front of 250 AI practitioners, engineers, and decision-makers.

Visonary
$10,000
  • 2 Minute Keynote Introduction
  • Main Stage Branding
  • Attendee List (Post-Event)
  • 45 Minute Speaking Session
  • Premium Location
  • Booth SizeCustom
  • Logo PlacementAll marketing channels
  • Swag Bag Opportunity
  • Complimentary Passes8
Pioneer
$6,500
  • 2 Minute Keynote Introduction
  • Main Stage Branding
  • Attendee List (Post-Event)
  • 45 Minute Speaking Session
  • Premium Location
  • Booth SizeLarge
  • Logo PlacementWebsite/Keynote Slide Deck
  • Swag Bag Opportunity
  • Complimentary Passes4
Advocate
$2,750
  • 2 Minute Keynote Introduction
  • Main Stage Branding
  • Attendee List (Post-Event)
  • 45 Minute Speaking Session
  • Premium Location
  • Booth SizeStandard
  • Logo PlacementWebsite
  • Swag Bag Opportunity
  • Complimentary Passes2
Community
$1,000
  • 2 Minute Keynote Introduction
  • Main Stage Branding
  • Attendee List (Post-Event)
  • 45 Minute Speaking Session
  • Premium Location
  • Booth Size
  • Logo PlacementWebsite
  • Swag Bag Opportunity
  • Complimentary Passes1

Put your brand in front of 250 decision-makers.

Sponsor packages from $1,000 — community tier through visionary partner. Download the prospectus →

Become a Sponsor →
The Venue

The Department at Hudson's Detroit.

A brand-new, purpose-built event space in the heart of downtown Detroit. 75,000 sq ft across three floors, with skyline views and walking distance to every major downtown hotel.

Event Address

The Department at Hudson's

1000 Nick Gilbert Way
Detroit, Michigan 48226

75k
SQ FT
3
FLOORS
2026
OPENED
Get Directions →
The Department at Hudson's
1000 Nick Gilbert Way · Detroit, MI
Get Directions →
FAQ

Frequently asked.

Didn't find what you needed? Drop us a note at hello@beyondconf.com.

Both. The Foundations and From Experience tracks lean technical; Ethics & Compliance skews toward leadership, legal, and risk. Most attendees jump between tracks. Every session is designed to be accessible even if it's not your home turf.

One day.
Zero hype.
All signal.

Early-bird pricing ends August 1. Seats are limited to 250 by design — book now or wait for 2027.