Conference Schedule
September 3, 2026
Smart AI 100 Summit
8:30 - 9:00 AM
Registration & breakfast
9:00 – 9:10 AM
Welcome
Grace Gong
9:10 – 9:40 AM
AI Security: Defending the New Attack Surface
Alex Stamos — Chief Product Officer, Corridor; former CSO, Facebook
Emilio Escobar — CISO, Datadog
Joel de la Garza — Investment Partner, a16z
Adam Ely — GM of AI Security, Check Point
Moderator: Grace Gong
9:40 – 10:10 AM
Building AI Companies That Last
Sri Viswanath — CEO, Sycamore; former CTO, Atlassian; former MD, Coatue
Snehal Antani — CEO, Horizon3
Debajyoti (Debo) Datta Co-Founder, Hippocratic AI
Moderator: Grace Gong
10:15 – 10:35 AM
Where the Money Is Going in AI Infrastructure
Lauri Moore — Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Gaurav Bhogale — Partner, Mantis VC
Jahanvi Sardana — Partner, Index Ventures
Jordan Segall — Partner, Redpoint
Moderator: Grace Gong
10:35 – 11:00 AM
What CIOs Are Actually Buying
Yousuf Khan — Founder, Clario; former CIO, Moveworks
Three public-company CIOs (confirming)
Moderator: Yousuf Khan
11:00 – 11:20 AM
Fireside — AI That Does the Work, Not Just the Advice
Amit Zavery — President, Chief Product Officer & COO, ServiceNow
Moderator: Grace Gong
11:20 – 11:40 AM
Inference at Scale?
Lance Matthews — Partner, DTCP Growth
Alberto Taiuti — CEO, Reactor
Moderator: Grace Gong
11:40 – 12:00 PM
Fireside chat — Ending the Billable Hour
Dan Mishin — Founder, Manifest
Midas List investor (confirming)
12:00 – 1:00 PM
Lunch
1:00 – 1:20 PM
What AI Needs to Work in the Real World
Marshall Choy — CBO, Rebellions; former Chief Customer Officer, SambaNova
Philip Rathle — CTO, Neo4j
Boris Sofman — CEO, Bedrock Robotics
Omar Haroun — CEO, Eudia
Moderator: Grace Gong
1:20 – 1:40 PM
Physical AI: Robotics Is Having Its Model Moment
Brian Zhan — Partner, Striker Venture Partners
Founder of a $14B company (confirming)
Moderator: Brian Zhan
1:40 – 2:00 PM
How We Know If a Model Is Any Good
Andrew Dai — CEO, Elorian
Anand Kannappan — CEO, Patronus AI
Rong Yan — CTO, HeyGen
Jason Goodison — CTO, General Compute
Moderator: Grace Gong
2:00 – 2:20 PM
Vertical Ai Panel
Yogi Goel — CEO, Maxima
Guy Marion — CMO & Growth, Chargebee
Cheryl Cheng — Managing Director, M12 (Microsoft)
2:20 – 2:40 PM
Chips, Systems & the Compute Buildout
Ashish Kakran — Managing Partner, Seligman Ventures
Founder of an $11B AI company (confirming)
Founder of a $1B seed-stage AI lab (confirming)
Moderator: Grace Gong
2:40 – 3:00 PM
Vertical & Horizontal AI
Alex Mashrabov — CEO, Higgsfield
Wen Sang — COO, Genspark
Jake Stauch — CEO, Serval
Tim Shi — Co-Founder, Recursive
Spiros Xanthos — CEO, Resolve AI
Moderator: Grace Gong
3:00 – 3:10 PM
Keynote — Turning Meetings Into Work
Leader from Zoom
3:10 – 3:30 PM
Break
3:30 – 4:00 PM
Fireside — Trusting AI Enough to Delegate to It
Jeetu Patel — President & Chief Product Officer, Cisco
Moderator: Grace Gong
4:00 – 4:30 PM
Fireside — Power, Chips, and the Neocloud Economy
CRO of Nebius, Marc Boroditsky
Moderator: Grace Gong
4:30 – 5:00 PM
Smart AI 100 List & Awards
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Happy hour — second location
Conference Schedule
April 2, 2026
Smart AI
GTM Summit
12:30 PM
Check-In, Welcome & Networking
MC by Kevin Jiang, Founding Partner, Mangusta Capital
4 pm and after
MC by Josh Constine, Venture Partner, SignalFire
9:00 – 9:15 AM
Opening Address: Setting the Stage for AI Leadership
John Benetti, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
9:00 – 9:15 AM
Welcome & Opening Remarks
Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
Partner Keynote: SVB
Partner Keynote: Sequoia
MC: Anarghya Vardhana, Venture Partner, Maveron
9:00 – 9:15 AM
Welcome & Opening Remarks
Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
Partner Keynote: SVB
Partner Keynote: Sequoia
MC: Anarghya Vardhana, Venture Partner, Maveron
1:05 – 1:20 PM
Opening Remarks: Why AI Now
Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
1:20 – 1:50 PM
Opening Fireside chat: The Future of AI Security & Scale
Snehal Antani, Co-Founder & CEO, Horizon3.ai
Ilya Kirnos, Founding Partner & CTO, SignalFire
2:00-2:40 PM
Panel: The New AI Investment Playbook
Lucas Swisher, General Partner, Coatue Management
Susana Rojas, Partner, Index Ventures
Kathleen Estreich, Partner, Pear VC
Ambar Bhattacharyya, Managing Partner, Maverick Ventures
Elizabeth Weil, Managing Director, Scribble Ventures
Andy McLoughlin, Managing Partner, Uncork Capital
Matt Vail, Head of VC Partnerships, OpenAI
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
3:20 – 3:50 PM
Fireside Chat: AI, Trust & the Future of the Enterprise
Jeetu Patel, President & Chief Product Officer, Cisco
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
4:50 – 5:20 PM
Panel: From Breakthroughs to Business: Scaling AI in the Real World
Dipti Borkar, VP & GM, Microsoft
Aparna Sinha, SVP of Product, Vercel
Sami Ghoche, Co-Founder & CEO, Forethought
Arpit Mittal, Partner, Threshold Ventures
Timur Yarnall, Director of AI Partners, Snowflake
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
4:00 – 4:50 PM
Smart AI 100 Startup Demos: Founders on the Frontier
Rishi Bhargav, Co-Founder, Descope
Karan Vaidya, Co-Founder, Composio
Soham Mazumdar, Co-Founder & CEO, Wisdom AI
Christopher Potts and Moritz Sudhof - Co-Founders of Bigspin AI
Mahi de Silva - Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Higgsfield AI
Sara Wyman - Founder & CEO of Stackpack
Allen Wang, Co-Founder & CEO, Ditto AI
Conor Brennan Burke, Founder & CEO, Hyperspell
Bill Sun, Founder - Generative Alpha
Lenjoy Lin, Co-founder, Genspark.ai
1:00 – 1:40 PM
The Billion-Dollar Blueprint: Patterns Behind the Fastest-Scaling AI Companies
Alexander Mashrabov, CEO & Co-founder, Higgsfield AI
Jake Stauch, Co-founder & CEO, Serval
Samir Menon, Founder & CEO, Dexterity Inc.
Dan O'Connell, CEO, Front
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
5:30 – 6:00 PM
Panel: Global AI Capital Flows (Where Big Tech and VC Are Betting Next)
Ganesh Bell, Managing Director, Insight Partners
Janelle Teng, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Sara Choi, Partner, Wing VC
Thomas Jueng, Senior Managing Director, Samsung Ventures
Tushar Gupta, Managing Director, Qualcomm Ventures
Clayton Petty, Partner, Gradient Ventures
Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner, Eclipse Capital
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
6:10 – 6:40 PM
Fireside Chat: The Next Wave of AI Infrastructure
Marc Boroditsky, Chief Revenue Officer, Nebius
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
6:40 – 7:20 PM
Smart AI 100 Awards & Group Photo
Grace Gong, Founder and CEO, Smart Venture Media
Jason Saltzman, Head of Insights, CB Insights
Presented by HubSpot, Snowflake, Morpheus, Vercel, SVB, Sequoia, Nebius, Wilson Sonsini, Auth0, Smart Venture Media
2:40 – 3:10 PM
Panel: Building the AI Dream Team (How to Recruit and Retain the Best Talent)
Advith Chelikani, Co-Founder, Pylon
Connor Heggie, Co-Founder, Unify
Deborah Hanus, Co-Founder & CEO, Sparrow
Dave Yarbrough, Business Consultant, Sequoia
Ivor Stratford, CEO, Morpheus
Meera Clark, Partner, Redpoint Ventures
Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
4:50 – 5:00 PM
Smart AI 100 Interactive Games lead by 14.ai
Closing Remarks Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
4:50 – 5:00 PM
Closing Remarks
Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
5:00 PM
Cocktail Reception & Speaker Dinner
(Invite Only)
Join the top AI Companies, leading VCs, Fortune 500 execs
Spring 2026
Summit
September 1, 2026
100 List
Leveraging the Power of Artificial Intelligence to Shape Tomorrow
Smart AI
Smart Venture Media 100 Summit 2026
Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media
President & Chief Product Officer, Cisco
President, CPO, and COO, ServiceNow
Co-Founder, Recursive AI
(Valuation: $4.65 billion)
Investment Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Co-Founder, Director, Hippocratic Al
Founder, Higgsfield
Founder & CEO, Serval
Founder, Sycamore
(ex-CTO at Atlassian)
Alex Stamos, Chief Product Officer, Corridor; former CSO, FacebooK
GM, AI Security, Check Point Software
Managing Partner, Seligman Venture
CEO & Co-founder, Patronus AI
Partner, Striker Venture Partners
Founder & CEO, Manifest OS
CISO, Datadog
Partner, Mantis Venture Capital
CMO & Growth, Chargebee
Partner, Index Ventures
CTO, General Compute
Partner, DTCP
Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Co-Founder & CEO, Eudia
CEO & Co-Founder, Horizon3.ai
CTO, HeyGen
Co-Founder & CEO, Bedrock Robotics
Co-Founder & CEO, Clario
Managing Partner, Seligman Ventures
Managing Director, M12
Co-founder & COO, Genspark
CEO, Reactor
Partner, Redpoint Ventures
Co-Founder, CEO & CFO, Maxima
Founder and CEO, Resolve AI
Co-Founder & CEO, Elorian AI
Philip Rathle, CTO, Neo4j
TOP VOICES
Meet the Speakers
Ticket Price $1,400
Venue
SVB EXPERIENCE CENTER
532 Market St,
San Francisco, CA 94104, USA
Who You’ll Meet
Get face-to-face with top-tier venture capitalists hunting for groundbreaking AI startups, Fortune 500 execs ready to invest and integrate new tech, and visionary founders who’ve successfully scaled AI solutions. Build relationships here that drive funding, partnerships, and strategic growth.
Why Attend?
Walk away with actionable strategies to accelerate your market expansion, insider knowledge on how Fortune 500 companies select AI partners, and real-world advice for navigating funding rounds from elite investors. One day here can unlock the connections and insights to scale your AI startup faster.
Companies | Industry | Industry | Country | Founded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Companies | Industry | Founded |
|---|---|---|
September 2026
Top 100 AI ACompanies
APRIL 2026
Smart AI Leadership Summit
April's 2026 exclusive event brought together AI startups seeking strategic connections to accelerate market expansion. Attendees engaged directly with influential VCs, Fortune 500 decision-makers eager to adopt innovative AI solutions, and visionary founders who had successfully scaled groundbreaking technologies.
FOUNDING PARTNER
INNOVATION PARTNERS
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ECOSYSTEM PARTNER
REBECCA C. BERRY EXPERIENCED RESULTS DRIVEN LEADERSHIP
2035