The program

Three days full of AI ideas, connections and breakthrough moments

October 28–30, 2026 · Hofburg, Vienna

60+speakers·48sessions across 3 days.

Day 1 · Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Opening Day

Come together on the first day of TEDAI 2026 and connect with fellow TEDsters from around the world. Reunite with familiar faces, spark new conversations, and meet the people who will shape your experience over the days ahead.

2 - 5PM

Registration

Pick up your conference badge and stop by the Info Hub for tips on how to make the most of your time at TEDAI.

2PM - 5PM

Open Mingle Hours

A soft arrival ahead of the main program: no agenda, just mingling with old and new friends in a beautiful, historic space.

5PM - 8PM

Free Time

Your time to explore the city with fellow TEDsters and get ready for the Opening Gala. The conference venue will be closed during this time.

8PM - 11PM

Opening Gala

A black-tie evening of glamour and Viennese ballroom magic. More details to follow soon.

Day 2 · Thursday, October 29, 2026

Discovery Day

An expansive offering of in-depth panel conversations, hands-on workshops and off-site ideas adventures, guided by TED speakers and select experts.

9 AM - 10AM

Breakfast Bites

Energize your morning with breakfast bites and a delicious coffee from one of our barista bars.

10AM - 1PM

Discovery Sessions: Spotlight Panels, Ideas Adventures, Workshops

Join a session to discover new AI ideas and build meaningful connections along the way.

19:00

Lunch Break

Grab a meal and share your highlights with fellow TEDsters.

2PM - 5PM

Discovery Sessions: Spotlight Panels, Ideas Adventures, Workshops

Dive into more discovery sessions, from expert conversations to off-site experiences.

6PM - 9PM

Themed AI Dinners

Connect over a shared theme in a relaxed dinner setting designed for engaging discussions. Start times may vary.

Workshops

Everything you need to know about AI lie detection

This is your AI. This is your AI on drugs.

The AI and Immortality Roleplay: Negotiating Memory, Care and Power

More to be announced soon!

No items found.

More speakers to be

announced soon.

Idea Adventures

AI Horror Shorts: TEDAI Community Awards

Afro Futcha - Diane Laidlaw

Gabriella Chihan Stanley

The Atelier of Togetherness

Graham Shaw

Stephanie Meisl

No items found.

More to be

announced

soon

Spotlight panels

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

The name is there

Panels will be

anounced

soon

Idea Adventures

Off-site

14:00 17:00

AI Horror Shorts: Community Awards

Hosted by Diane Laidlaw

Gartenbaukino

Off-site

10:30 13:00

AI perfumery workshop

Hosted by Gabriella Chihan Stanley · Theo Beaumont

Naturhistorisches Museum

Off-site

09:30 12:00

Listening to the city: sound walks with ML

Hosted by Omid Nouri · Kweku Asante

Prater & Danube Canal

Off-site

14:30 17:30

Rewriting museum labels with a language model

Hosted by Klara Hoffmann

Belvedere Upper Palace

Off-site

10:00 12:30

Code-poetry jam: generative verse

Hosted by Sara Imani

MuseumsQuartier

Off-site

15:00 18:00

Robotics through glass

Hosted by Hiroshi Tanaka

TU Wien Robotics Hall

AI Dinners

Gather around shared themes with TED experts and attendees in stunning settings, accompanied by Austrian cuisine and drinks. Sign-up is required.

Day 3 · Friday, October 30, 2026

Talks Day

On the final day, step into the TEDAI theater to hear from 20+ TED speakers and performers sharing the AI ideas changing our world. Times are subject to minor adjustments.

  1. 8:30AM - 9:30AM CET15 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Policy

    Breakfast Bites

    Fuel up for another action-packed day.

  2. 9:30AM - 11:00AM CET12 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Brain

    Talks | Session One

    Speakers line-up to come!

  3. 11:00AM - 12:00PM CET20 min

    Morning break

    Share your first learnings from Session One with fellow TEDsters over coffee and snacks.

  4. 12:00PM - 1:30PM CET12 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Brain

    Talks | Session Two

    Speakers line-up to come!

  5. 1:30PM - 3:00PM CET20 min

    Lunch Break

    Enjoy lunch at one of the buffets, connect with the TED speakers or take a moment to unwind.

  6. 3:00PM - 4:30PM CET12 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Brain

    Talks | Session Three

    Speakers line-up to come!

  7. 4:30PM - 5:30PM CET20 min

    Afternoon Break

    Chat with TED speaker and attendees  while comparing your notes from the previous sessions.

  8. 5:30PM - 7:00PM CET12 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Brain

    Talks | Session Four

    Speakers line-up to come!

  9. 7:00PM - 11:30PM CET15 min

    Hofburg Imperial Palace

    AI & Policy

    Closing Celebration

    After a day full with excitement, inspiration and imagination, there’s only one more thing left: the TEDAI Afterparty! Whether you’re looking to discuss the conference over drinks or celebrate on the dancefloor, this is the party for you.

  10. 10:0515 min

    Rama Akkiraju

    AI & Digital Labor

    Every job, split in two

    A framework for how AI will divide work into the parts that become art and the parts that vanish.

  11. 10:5040 min

    Geoffrey Hinton · Jürgen Schmidhuber · Moderated by Verity Harding

    AI & Safety · Panel

    The long view

    Two founders of the field in conversation: what they got right, what they got wrong, and what they would work on now.

  12. 11:3514 min

    Kauna Ibrahim Malgwi

    AI & Digital Labor

    The therapist in the machine

    Six months of clinical observation on people building real relationships with chatbots — and what that asks of clinicians.

  13. 11:5515 min

    Thomas Wolf

    AI & Open Science

    Open models, open futures

    Why the next generation of useful AI will be the kind you can read, fork, and audit.

  14. 12:1575 min

    Lunch

    Hofburg courtyards

  15. 13:3014 min

    Peter Steinberger

    AI & Agents

    Agents without permission

    A founder's case for building AI that acts first and asks later — and the guardrails that make it survivable.

  16. 13:5035 min

    Oriol Vinyals · Łukasz Kaiser · Swami Sivasubramanian · Moderated by Inés Romero

    AI & Agents · Panel

    After the plateau, an update

    Three principal researchers on what actually changed in the last eighteen months.

  17. 14:3012 min

    Clara Vidal

    AI & Democracy

    The election that wasn't

    Inside a coordinated synthetic-media campaign that nearly tipped a national vote.

  18. 14:4514 min

    Hiroshi Tanaka

    AI & Embodiment

    Hands that learn by being wrong

    A robotics lab where failure is the curriculum: what humanoid manipulators teach us about our own minds.

  19. 15:0025 min

    Afternoon tea

    Festsaal foyer

  20. 15:2513 min

    Arjun Patil

    AI & Safety

    Red-teaming in public

    Six attacks that worked, four that didn't, and one that would have been catastrophic if it had shipped a week later.

  21. 15:4015 min

    Adaeze Okafor

    AI & Medicine

    A stethoscope for a continent

    An open-source diagnostic model trained on African chest x-rays outperforming expensive commercial tools.

  22. 15:5513 min

    Sara Imani

    AI & Language

    Translations that keep the grief

    Building machine translation systems that preserve what matters most in a sentence.

  23. 16:1035 min

    Adaeze Okafor · Deniz Yılmaz · Kauna Ibrahim Malgwi · Verity Harding · Moderated by Clara Vidal

    AI & Policy · Panel

    The regulation panel

    Four perspectives on what a workable global regime for frontier AI actually looks like.

  24. 16:5014 min

    Gabriella Chihan Stanley

    AI & Culture

    The invisible collaborator

    A creative technologist on working with — and sometimes against — systems that now co-author every image she makes.

  25. 17:0512 min

    Leila Nassar

    AI & Culture

    Machine ears at the Musikverein

    A year inside a 185-year-old orchestra learning to rehearse with an ensemble of neural networks.

  26. 17:2015 min

    Geoffrey Hinton

    AI & Safety

    What I worry about at night

    The closing talk. A pioneer of the field on what keeps him up now, and what he would say to his younger self.

  27. 17:4020 min

    Closing remarks & send-off

    Festsaal

Across all three days

Themes

Every talk, panel, and workshop sits inside one of these. Use them to chart your own path through the program.

  1. AI & Safety

    How we keep frontier systems aligned, auditable, and survivable.

    4 sessions

  2. AI & Agents

    What it means to give software autonomy — and what it owes us back.

    5 sessions

  3. AI & Brain

    Reading and writing to the mind: neuroscience meets the model.

    2 sessions

  4. AI & Digital Labor

    Who works for whom now that the work itself is being rewritten.

    4 sessions

  5. AI & Policy

    The institutions, treaties, and laws we still need to write.

    3 sessions

  6. AI & Culture

    Music, museums, image — what counts as authorship now.

    4 sessions

  7. AI & Medicine

    From open-source diagnostics to the clinic of the next decade.

    2 sessions

  8. AI & Open Science

    Models you can read, fork, and audit — and why it matters.

    1 session

Hofburg,
the imperial palace at the heart of Vienna

Located at the heart of Vienna, the Hofburg’s central location makes it ideal for exploring the city’s vibrant offerings.

For more than seven centuries, the empire of the Habsburgs was ruled from here. Even after the monarchy, it remains the official residence of Austria’s federal president. Expanded gradually from the 13th century, this monumental palace now spans over 300,000 m², ranking among the largest palace complexes in the world.

Hofburg palace in Vienna with a lot of people walking around it

    General

  •  What is TEDAI?

    TED events bring together a group of industry leaders and changemakers for unique experiences dedicated to TED’s global mission of sharing meaningful new ideas. We are devoted to curiosity, reason, wonder and the pursuit of knowledge - without an agenda. We welcome people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world and connection with others. TEDAI is Europe’s exclusive TED Conference on Artificial Intelligence. It is one of out two official TED Conferences in the world (not TEDx).

  • When and where does TEDAI take place?

    The next TEDAI Conference takes place October 28-30 in Vienna, Austria.

  • Is TEDAI a TEDx event?

    No. TEDAI is one out of two official TED Conferences taking place this year, and the only one outside North America. On the other hand, TEDx events are independently organised by local communities all around the world.

  • Are TED Talks different than other presentations?

    TED is dedicated to researching and sharing knowledge that matters through short talks and presentations. Our goal is to inform and educate global audiences in an accessible way. Scientists, researchers, technologists, business leaders, artists, designers and other world experts take the TED stage to present innovative and bold ideas. All TED Talks are carefully curated, fact-checked and reviewed. Read more about our curation guidelines here.

  • What other activities take place beyond TED Talks?

    TEDAI immerses you in bold, original AI ideas from around the world. While the final day brings these ideas to the main stage through TED talks, the program goes far beyond the stage with hands-on workshops, panels, and immersive ideas adventures outside of the venue. You’ll also get to join our Opening Gala, curated AI Dinners, and the Closing Celebration.

  • I can’t attend anymore, can I get a refund?

    Conference passes are non-refundable, please refer to the terms & conditions here for more information.

    Experience

  • Do I pay have to pay on site for meals and drinks?

    All beverages and meals are included in your conference pass—from breakfast and lunch to a variety of buffet options at the conference venue throughout the event, as well as the dinners on October 29. All meals at the event include clearly labelled options for vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free diets. This year, we’re placing a special focus on authentic local Austrian cuisine, so you’re truly in for a treat!

  • What is the dress code?

    For the Opening Gala on October 28 the dress code is Black Tie.

    During the conference days on October 29 and 30,  he dress code is casual, informal and comfortable for all events. There's no need for jackets, suits or ties.

  • Which sessions require sign-up, and which do not?

    Activities that do not require sign-up:

    • Opening Gala on Oct 28
    • Discovery Day panels on October 29; TED Talks on October 30;
    • Afterparty on October 30

    Activities with required sign-up:

    • Workshops and ideas adventures on Discovery Day on October 29
    • AI Dinners on the evening of October 29.
  • How do I sign up for activities?

    Sign-up is required for workshops, ideas adventures, and the AI Dinners. Sign-up opens on October 14 with the launch of the TEDAI app. You’ll be notified of the exact timing via our newsletters and social channels. If you don’t get into your preferred activity right away, it’s worth checking back, as last-minute spots may open up.

  • Where can I see my agenda?

    Anything you sign up for will appear in your agenda in the TEDAI app both on mobile and desktop – we will be releasing the app on October 14.

  •  Is TEDAI accessible?

    TEDAI is committed to ensuring that everyone can fully participate in and feel comfortable at the event, regardless of accessibility needs. The following features and services are provided to make your experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible:

    General
    The main entrance is accessible, and all floors are accessible by lift. Each floor has accessible toilets, clearly marked at the venue and on the event map. Additional guidance is available at info desks. Dedicated wheelchair spots are available at each stage, and ramps are provided for speakers.

    Please notify us in advance at tedai-vienna@ted.com in the case you bring an interpreter or an assistance dog.

    Quiet Spaces & Sensory Support
    Our dedicated quiet room is there for relaxing, meditating, or simply stepping away for a moment (not for working). Earplugs are available on request at the Info Hub to help manage sensory overload.

    Event Design & Visual Elements
    Some areas include flashing lights, lasers, large screens, bold colors, and art installations, which may be stimulating for some attendees, including those with photosensitive epilepsy. Please contact us at tedai-vienna@ted.com so we can guide you on which parts of the program may be affected and help you plan your visit.

    Code of Conduct
    Our Harassment Contact Persons are trained professionals available to help in situations of discomfort, conflict, or sensory overload at the Info Hub.

  • Are there any hotel or accommodation discounts for attendees?

    Yes. Our exclusive hotel partner, Hotel Sacher - renowned for its three Michelin keys and as the birthplace of the world-famous Sacher Cake - offers special rates for TEDAI attendees. Please contact tedai-vienna@ted.com to receive further booking details.

    For TEDx organizers

  • Is TEDAI a qualifying event?

    Yes. Attending this event qualifies you to obtain a Community Plus TEDx license, enabling you to host TEDx events for over 100 attendees. Learn more about the TEDx program to discover how you can get started. For more details, please reach out to tedx@ted.com.