We hosted MAICON 2026 in Cleveland, Oct 13-15. It was an incredible week that brought nearly 2,000 marketers and business leaders together from all around the world.
I met attendees from as far away as Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and Dubai.
We had dozens of remarkable speakers who gave generously of their time to educate and inspire. Day one closed with two memorable sessions from Kevin Roose and Andrew Yang.
Roose told the stories of his new book, The AGI Chronicles, a behind-the-scenes account of the trillion-dollar sprint to create AGI. He draws on more than 150 interviews with insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, as well as unpublished company documents and research memos, to reconstruct the most consequential decade in tech history.
Meanwhile, Yang entertained and awed the crowd with his personal experiences as a 2020 presidential candidate, and his vision for how to shift the economy as AI and robotics begin to impact jobs.
Day two took on a heavier tone to start when Karen Hao presented Empire of AI based on her bestselling book.
The MAICON theme since our inaugural event in 2019 has been, “More Intelligent. More Human.” I have always believed we needed to not only present the opportunities to grow our companies and careers with the technology, but raise awareness about the risks and potential negative impacts as well.
Still, it can be jarring to go from inspiring talks about agents and AI transformations, to insider stories about IP theft and the extractive behavior of leading AI labs.
Here’s how I introduced Hao’s session:
“There are some uncomfortable truths to how this technology is created and the negative impacts it can have on society. We cannot take a responsible human-centered approach to AI without understanding the human impact behind it.
“Some of the things that Karen explains in this session might make you uncomfortable if it’s the first time you’re hearing them.
“You may have employees or coworkers who are resistant to using AI, potentially because they read Karen’s book, or have heard about the darker side of how the technology works.
“We hear these questions and concerns all the time around the economic, environmental, and human impact of AI.
“So while we can absolutely be excited about technology and optimistic about the future that it will create, we can’t pretend like it doesn’t come at a cost.”
It was a powerful session in a week filled with so many moments I won’t soon forget.
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