agent_runtime_design
01/06
// Agent runtime design
State ownership, recovery, replay paths, and approval boundaries for long-running agents.
Users feel broken ordering as a forgetful agent.
QCon AI New York 2026 · The AI conference for senior developers, architects & engineering leaders
$ qcon ai --edition newyork-2026
// output
Take your AI from impressive demo to governed infrastructure.
Production is where you find out if the system holds up, and whether you can see what the agent did. Learn how senior engineers handle state, context, evals, and security before an incident teaches you.
Current pricing ends August 11th · $1,450
Conference
December 15–16, 2026 · 2 days
Location
Jersey City, NJ · 5 min to Manhattan
Venue
The Westin Jersey City Newport
Format
Senior practitioner-led · curated by a program committee
Past attendees included senior engineers from
Program
Production AI patterns from the senior engineers and architects who built them.
What the program covers across the two days:
context_engineering
02/06
// Context engineering
The right company context for the task, without stale docs or oversized prompts.
evals_observability
03/06
// Evals and observability
Trace what the agent saw, what it called, what it decided, and what it cost.
Turn detected failures into deterministic checks that gate releases.
mcp_and_tool_access
04/06
// MCP and tool access
Scoped permissions, ownership, and audit trails as tool use grows.
zero_trust_security
05/06
// Zero-trust agent security
Least privilege, bounded retrieval, and kill switches for tool-using agents.
inference_cost_latency
06/06
// Inference cost and latency
Routing, caching, batching, and token budgets, planned up front.
Program committee
A program chosen by senior practitioners, session by session.
The program is chosen by a committee of working senior engineers. Two questions decide every session:
- 1 Has the speaker run this in production?
- 2 Will they share what didn't work as honestly as what worked?
How the program comes together
August
First sessions announced
October
Preliminary schedule
Early November
Complete program published
Eder Ignatowicz
QCon AI New York 2026 Conference Chair
Faye Zhang
QCon AI New York 2026 Program Committee Member
Wes Reisz
QCon AI New York 2026 Program Committee Member
Get notified as sessions and speakers are announced
Program updates from the committee as the QCon AI New York lineup takes shape.
Operating an autonomous AI system at scale is one of the hardest engineering problems we have right now. QCon AI New York looks entirely at the runtime reality. You get direct access to how teams handle traces, zero-trust boundaries, inference costs, and the organizational workflows that keep these systems from breaking.
Bring the people who own the decisions
Production AI takes a team.
What each role takes back:
type SoftwareArchitects
patterns for where an LLM's judgment belongs and where deterministic code takes over
type StaffPlusEngineers
what it takes to turn a demo agent into a system that survives a failed run
type MLMLOpsEngineers
eval designs that say ship or hold
type PlatformEngineers
how other platform teams handle model access, eval pipelines, and inference cost
type SecurityEngineers
identity, least privilege, and kill switches for tool-using agents
type EngineeringLeaders
adoption metrics tied to delivery and quality
Teams that attend together hear the same thinking firsthand and settle the build-or-wait debates faster.
Make the case
Convince your manager
You go back with patterns ready to adopt, costly mistakes you can now avoid, and a way to de-risk technical investments before building them. The pre-written templates make the case for you.
Convince your manager
Extend your stay
Coming in early or staying on?
The hotel works as a weekend base. Manhattan is five minutes away for museums and shows, the waterfront promenade is there for a morning run, and Newport Centre is next door. For itinerary ideas, the city's official visitor guide is at nyctourism.com.
The QCon AI experience
Patterns and practices,
not products and pitches.
Talks worth your time. Connections that matter.
- Practitioner-led sessions selected by a committee of working senior engineers
- The decisions, tradeoffs, fixes, and open questions behind production AI systems
- Patterns to apply: agent boundaries, eval loops, cost controls, and tool-access models
- Peer conversations between every session with senior engineers and architects working through the same decisions
- A two-day format built for technical conversations
- Sponsored talks are clearly separated from the editorial program
You can stream talks.
You can't stream these conversations.
Why senior engineers trust QCon
What QCon AI attendees say
Senior engineers and architects on what they took back from QCon AI New York.
I came in with a question: how much of what's presented at an AI conference is real, and how much is demo with more lights and noise than substance? And today there was a lot of substance, more than I expected.
The strongest message I brought was not about models. It was about execution, going beyond the hype and understanding how companies run AI at full scale.
Being surrounded by engineers and AI practitioners building real, scalable systems gave me a fresh perspective on how thoughtful design, trade-offs, and long-term impact shape good software. What stood out most was the community and the honesty.
our attendees
Who attends
Senior engineering leaders, software architects, and team leads making decisions on production AI.
76%
are senior developers or higher — architects, leads & engineering management
-
46%Eng. managers, senior management & architects
-
30%Senior developers & engineers
-
24%Developers
1:11
speaker : attendees
One speaker for every eleven attendees. Practitioners running production systems, close enough to reach between talks.
Past QCon attendees included senior engineers from organizations including Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, eBay, Uber, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and NASA.
track record
20+ years of sharing what’s worth your team’s time
QCon and InfoQ have given every major technology shift the same practitioner-led treatment: sessions chosen for technical depth and real production experience.
1M
read InfoQ every month
4,500+
attend QCon & Dev Summit each year
pricing
Pricing and deadlines
Current pricing ends
Price
- August 11th Now $1,450
- September 8th $1,535
- October 13th $1,620
- November 10th $1,705
- December 8th $1,790
- From December 9th full price $1,875
All amounts in USD.
What you'd pay today
$1,450
Current price until August 11th
Register nowThe price steps up at each deadline.
Save when you bring the team
Group and alumni discounts
Groups of 10 or more qualify for an exclusive group discount. Groups of three or more and Alumni discounts will be available beginning September 9th.
Attendees
Discount / ticket
- 3–6 $50
- 7–10 $75
- 11–15 $100
- 16+ $125
- Are you an Alumni / attended a QCon before? $100 off
Discounts don't stack and are applied at the time of order. For a promo code, email info@newyork.qcon.ai with your group size.
Payment & deadlines
- Plans change: transfer your ticket to a colleague for free until Friday, December 11, 2026. Email info@newyork.qcon.ai.
- Refunds: registration fees are non-refundable.
- Group registration: sign up your team now, decide who joins by November 27.
- Only participants who have paid in full before the event start date are admitted or receive access credentials.
venue & hotel
The Westin Jersey City Newport
Skyline views, one PATH stop from Lower Manhattan.
On the Hudson directly across from Lower Manhattan, with skyline views from the rooms and event space. The conference and your hotel room are in the same building. No commute between sessions and check-in, and the conversations continue in the lobby after the last talk.
Address
479 Washington Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07310.
Accommodation
Check the best available rates at the Westin and nearby hotels here.
Alternative hotels
Courtyard Jersey City Newport and Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson are a short walk away.
getting there
Getting there
PATH train
Newport station is a 5-min walk. One stop (WTC line) to Lower Manhattan ~5 min; five stops (33rd St line) to Midtown ~15 min. Fare $3.25, contactless. Runs 24/7.
Plane
Newark (EWR) ~11 mi, 15-20 min. LaGuardia (LGA) ~15 mi, 35-55 min. JFK ~22 mi, 50-90 min.
Taxi / rideshare
SoHo/downtown 12-20 min via Holland Tunnel, ~$25-$45 with toll. Midtown 20-45 min.
Light rail
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail stops behind the hotel.
Driving
Just off I-78 at the Holland Tunnel approach. On-site parking available.
Around the hotel
Newport Centre mall behind the hotel; UEZ-certified stores charge reduced 3.3125% sales tax; clothing and shoes are tax-free across New Jersey.
Waterfront promenade restaurants, a nearby Whole Foods, and jogging trails along the water with the Manhattan skyline across it.
faq
Before you register
What is QCon AI New York 2026?
A two-day conference on production AI for senior software engineers, software architects, and engineering leaders. Senior practitioners walk through the AI systems they run in production and what they'd do differently, across agent runtime design, context engineering, evals, tool access, security, and inference cost. December 15–16, 2026, at The Westin Jersey City Newport, one PATH stop from Lower Manhattan.
Who is it for?
Senior software engineers, architects, Staff+ engineers, ML and MLOps engineers, platform engineers, security engineers, and engineering leaders making decisions on production AI. If you're moving AI work from prototype into production and own how it runs, it's built for you.
Who is behind QCon AI?
C4Media, the team behind InfoQ and QCon. QCon has helped senior software teams adopt new technologies and practices for more than 20 years, and QCon AI applies the same practitioner-led approach to production AI.
Do you offer group or team discounts?
Yes. Register 3 or more colleagues from the same company and save per ticket: $50 off for 3 to 6 attendees, $75 for 7 to 10, $100 for 11 to 15, and $125 for 16 or more. QCon alumni get $100 off. Discounts don't stack and are applied at the time of order. The group registration deadline is November 27, 2026.
Email info@newyork.qcon.ai with your group size for a code.
Can I transfer or refund my ticket if plans change?
Registration fees are non-refundable, but you can transfer your ticket to a colleague for free until December 11, 2026. Email info@newyork.qcon.ai to arrange it.
Please include the following information for the new attendee:
- First and Last Name:
- Preferred Pronouns:
- Email Address:
- Job Title:
How are talks selected?
By a program committee of working senior engineers. Every session has to clear two questions: has the speaker run this in production, and will they share what didn't work as honestly as what did. The committee filters product pitches out before any session is accepted, and sponsored talks are clearly separated from the editorial program. That's what "no hidden product pitches" means in practice.
The full program isn't published yet. Why register now?
First sessions are announced in August, a preliminary schedule follows in October, and the complete program is published by early November. Two reasons to register before then: pricing rises on set deadlines, so booking sooner costs less, and every session comes from the same committee filter, so you're not buying blind even before the names are up.
When and where is it?
December 15–16, 2026, at The Westin Jersey City Newport, 479 Washington Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07310. The conference runs inside the hotel, one PATH stop from Lower Manhattan.
Where should I stay?
We've partnered with BCD M&E to help QCon AI NY participants find affordable accommodations that meet their requirements.
Access to a wide selection of hotels at the lowest available rates, with no administration or handling fees. Group discounts available for 9+ rooms.
Come for the talks. Leave with patterns you can apply.
Two days in December, right when next year's decisions get made.