Now is the time to build.

The models are moving fast. So are the people using them.

Over the past few years, we have seen communities in Dublin grow. Every week, organisers bring people together to share what they know, work on ideas, and help each other learn and build.

But that energy is scattered. Dublin AI Week is a chance to bring it together.

Most tech conferences put a few people on a stage and everyone else in seats. The ticket can cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of euros. They are built around sales and networking.

Dublin AI Week is different

There is no single venue or main stage. Multiple decentralised events will happen across the city, most created by independent communities. Every event is free to attend, with each organiser curating the room.

You might take part in a Capture the Flag over boba, read a new research paper with people who can help make sense of it, build a robot, or sit down at a café with someone working on an idea you have never heard of.

Some events will be deeply technical. Others will be for people opening these tools for the first time.

The week is for engineers, researchers, designers, students, artists, and builders. What brings them together is the urge to learn, make something, and meet people they would not otherwise meet.

For one week, we want Dublin to feel like San Francisco

We want the future to show up in ordinary places across the city: strange technology, unfinished work, and conversations that lead to a collaborator, co-founder or friend.

Dublin already has the ingredients. OpenAI has its European headquarters here1. Anthropic has opened an office here2. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many more have built major operations here.

Irish founders are punching above their weight. Intercom began as a speech bubble inside an earlier product3; fifteen years later, now Fin, Salesforce agreed to buy it for $3.6 billion4. Tines began with Eoin Hinchy and Thomas Kinsella automating repetitive security work. It is now worth $1.125 billion and runs over a billion actions a week5. Wayflyer used Facebook Ads data to see what financial statements missed; it became a $1.6 billion unicorn in 29 months6 and has deployed over $5 billion7.

Dan Hobbs and Ciarán O’Mara met at BT Young Scientist, then built Protex AI after CCTV revealed missed warnings before a fatal accident8. It is now used by Amazon, Tesla and Toyota9. Nory turned Conor Sheridan’s Mad Egg spreadsheets into an AI operating system on track to serve nearly 10% of the UK and Ireland’s multi-site restaurant market, lifting some customers’ net profits by over 50%10. Luke Mackey, Patrick O’Boyle and Deepak Baliga asked why benefits couldn’t be as easy as Slack; Kota now covers 100k+ employees11.

$3.6B

Salesforce's agreed price for Intercom, which began as a speech bubble inside an earlier product.

100,000+

Employees whose benefits now run through Kota, started in Dublin in 2022.

The talent is here. Dublin AI Week gives people across the city a week to find each other, share what they know, and start building together.

Dublin AI Week leads into Rebase, organised by Baseline & Frontline, which will bring 300 founders and leading investors from across Europe together for matching sessions, salon conversations and intimate dinners. Together, the two events can raise the standard of the Irish startup ecosystem. Pressure Cooker, the week’s startup hackathon, sits in that same week.

Making the most of that moment depends on the leaders, community organisers, and builders already here.

This is the first Dublin AI Week. The people who show up now will shape what it becomes.