The AI Engineer World’s Fair returns to Moscone West in San Francisco from June 28 through July 2, 2026. It is the largest technical AI conference in the world, with 29 tracks, more than 400 sessions, 100-plus expo partners, and thousands of AI engineers, founders, and VPs of AI in one building. The week opens with New Engineer Orientation on Sunday evening, a full day of hands-on workshops on Monday, then three days of keynotes and up to 12 parallel tracks.
Nobody sees all of it. The attendees who get the most out of the week are the ones who plan before they walk in. Here’s how to do that.
The Basics: When, Where, and How Long
The Fair runs four days at Moscone West, a convention venue in downtown San Francisco. Everything lives under one roof across three floors connected by a single lobby: keynotes, breakout tracks, the expo, the labs, networking, and coffee. An attendee is never more than an escalator ride from the next session. You can find all the necessary details on both the AIE World Fair’s site or the conference app.
The real start of the conference is the evening of Sunday, June 28, when badge pickup and New Engineer Orientation open. Main programming hours run roughly 8 a.m. into the early evening on conference days, with the program grid spanning into the night for receptions and side events. Expo access covers three and a half days, from June 29 through July 2.
Callout! San Francisco is hosting World Cup matches the same week, including a quarterfinal on July 1. Hotel rooms near Moscone are scarcer and pricier than a normal conference week, so lodging and transit deserve more lead time than usual.
Day Zero and Day One: Orientation, Then Building
Sunday, June 28 is New Engineer Orientation (NEO). Early registration and badge pickup run from 5 to 9 p.m., with the orientation itself from 7 to 9 p.m.. NEO exists for first-timers: Pick up a badge, meet a small peer group, ask the questions that feel obvious, and map out the week before the crowds arrive. Attendees who have never done a multitrack conference of this size tend to find it worth the early evening. Sign-ups go through the supports search, filters, and favorites, which is the single most useful prep tool for the week.
With as many as 12 sessions happening at once, the math is simple. No one attends everything live. The Fair is built to be divided and conquered, which is why so many companies send teams that split up and regroup to compare notes. Talks are typically recorded and posted afterward, so missing a session in person is not the same as losing it.
The Expo and the Hallway Track
The expo runs three and a half days and is three times larger than last year’s program, with more than 100 partners, four stages for live demos and talks, and the major AI labs on the floor, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Amazon AGI Labs, Minimax, and zAI. A Startup Battlefield runs on July 2, and the expo stays open through the final day, so there is no rush to see all of it on Tuesday.
Don’t miss the hallway track! The conversations that happen between sessions, at the booths, and over coffee are sometimes the most engaging and informative. Experienced attendees consistently rank these as some of the most valuable hours of the week. The Fair leans into this on purpose. There are no official afterparties on July 1 or 2, and side events and community meetups are actively encouraged instead, partly so attendees can catch the World Cup quarterfinal together.
How to Actually Have a Good Week
- A few habits separate a productive week from an exhausting blur:
- Pick a spine, not a buffet. Anchor each day to one or two tracks that match your current goals, then leave room to wander. Chasing every interesting session across three floors is how people end up seeing nothing well.
- Favorite sessions in the app in advance. Use the interactive schedule before arriving. Decisions made in the hallway at 9 a.m. can be worse than ones made the night before.
- Do NEO if it is your first time. Two hours on Sunday saves a lot of disorientation on Tuesday.
- Talk to strangers. The hallway track only works for people who use it. Booths, lunch tables, and the lines for popular talks are all openings.
- Pace yourself. Comfortable shoes, water, and an honest assessment of energy levels matter across a four-day, morning-to-evening event. Burning out on day one is a common and avoidable mistake.
- Keep a running notes list. Capture one takeaway per session while it is fresh. By Thursday, the talks blur together, and a short list of what actually landed is worth more than a folder of slides.
The Fair rewards preparation. Pick the tracks, favorite the sessions, book lodging early around the World Cup crowds, and leave room for hallway conversations. Do that, and a week that could feel overwhelming becomes the most useful four days on the calendar.
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