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Where the AI World Gathers.
Dubai, November 2-3, 2026.

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A year ago, /function1 was a one-day curated gathering of 600 people.

In late 2025, it became a two-day conference with three stages, 150+ speakers, and 10,000+ attendees from 141 countries - that’s 72% of the whole world!

In just 11 months, we have grown 16x in scale, becoming one of the most rapidly growing tech conferences in the world. Today, we are more than just an event: a full-fledged ecosystem where the AI world gathers to communicate, exchange ideas, and evolve.

The growth happened fast. The impact is real. And this is only the start.

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The future of work may not be humans vs AI at all.

According to @PhillipKingston (CTO, @AppliedAICo), some companies are already seeing better results from systems where AI handles scale, and humans step in where expertise and judgment matter most.

Once organizations see the side-by-side performance, there is no going back.

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Back in November 2025, @chantel_elloway (President & Founder, CEPR) asked our audience if AI would surpass human creativity.

Few said yes. More said no. But when asked if we want AI to push creativity beyond human limits, the answers became mixed. Maybe the real question is not what AI can do, but what we actually want from it?

Watch the full panel on our YouTube channel: https://t.co/geQYUsCRiF

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AI agents are everywhere right now, with millions of users and billions in projected value, but it’s still unclear how much is real progress and how much is hype. What do you think will actually last?

Let us know your thoughts, and watch the full keynote by Pavel Sokolov, Founder @atomicbot_ai: https://t.co/V2WoMWdoGk

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The most human things aren’t complicated.

Coffee. Conversations. A bit of panic.
Meeting people and figuring things out.

Just a normal day at the AI Genesis hackathon by /function1 and @lablabai - in the middle of something bigger.

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What would Mohamed tell himself 18 months ago? This is important to hear for everyone building early:

"Stop waiting for the product to be perfect before you show it to the world. What gets built is always shaped by real contact with real users, real markets, real pushback. And you cannot do it alone. One hand does not clap."

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Mohamed Awes (@drma_9), CEO of @avano_ai, started as a doctor. Then, he became a car rental operator. Now he's building AI for an entire region.

None of it looked connected. Until you see the pattern.
At every stop - medicine, rentals, tech - he kept seeing the same thing: broken systems, which nobody was fixing.

That became the only through line that mattered.

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At /function1, a person approached their booth without them pitching at all. Before showcasing the demo. First question was: "What's your traction?"

That conversation reframed everything. A new idea appeared - the data they were collecting had value far beyond the subscription. That every operator that joined made the platform smarter for every other operator. A flywheel, not just a product.

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Pavel Sokolov, CEO @aimlapi, is convinced: #AI is moving from large and general to focused and precise.

Faster models.
Local deployment.
Better reasoning.

Less noise. More relevance.

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We're 18 days into March, and already breaking records for $100M+ AI rounds. Not in apps, though - in infrastructure.

$720B in Big Tech capex. $610M into AI agent infra. It seems like money is gathering around whoever (or whatever) becomes unavoidable.

Are you building on someone else's infrastructure, or rather becoming the infrastructure?

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Technology can look like a threat, but Ankit Lathigara, AVP at @Nasdaq, believes that the real challenge isn’t the technology itself.

It’s governance, ethics, and how we decide to use it.

With the right approach, the same tools that worry us can also accelerate progress for businesses and society.

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Proof of concept succeeds. Employee panics. Project stalls.
This is the cycle nobody talks about in enterprise AI.

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From Japan to Sudan, builders came together with one goal: solving real problems.

Improving hospital workflows.
Simplifying medical insurance claims.
Exploring AI support for trauma analysis.

Different ideas, one mindset: build something meaningful.

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This February, our CEO @AddyCrezee and Jonathan Foltz (The Collective AI) hosted the 1st OpenClaw Kickoff in Dubai. The event was overbooked, lively, and full of energy, but it was more than just a meetup, just as OpenClaw isn’t just an AI agent - it’s a community where early collaborators gain influence, visibility, and opportunities to shape the future of Agentic AI.

The success of the meetup reinforced what we’ve always believed: community is everything. In 2026, we’re turning that belief into action with a series of events designed to connect, empower, and grow the /function1 community.

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Ecosystems aren’t built overnight. They’re created by repeatedly bringing the right people into the same room - founders, industry operators, investors, the next-gen AI genius - and giving them space to learn, challenge each other, work, and evolve as a community.

That’s what we’re building with /function1.

Not a moment. A platform.

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/function1 has been acknowledged as one of the most impactful stages in AI and the best AI event in Dubai by teams and experts building at scale: @Nasdaq, @Google, @LinkedIn, @awscloud, and more.

We brought founders, experts, and innovators together. We shared ideas, explored the future, and created moments that stay with people.

We are genuinely grateful for the feedback we have received.

It’s something that stays with us and guides us forward.