Collective Intelligence

Welcome to our June event. We're delighted to welcome [Marina Kim](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marinawebdev/), Tech Lead, Vidatec and [Damien Jones](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrdamienjones/), AWS Consultant, Steamhaus You've seen the AgentCore demos. **Marina** has taken them into production, and lived to tell the tale. Tonight she's giving us the engineering reality behind building AI agents on AWS with Amazon Bedrock and tooling: what breaks, what costs you, and what actually ships. Five weeks. A brand new business. A Crufts deadline. **Damien** didn't whiteboard this one - he shipped it. Tonight he's walking us through every decision that made it possible: AWS CDK, Amplify, Q Developer, and Kiro working together under real pressure. A big thank you to our sponsors [Cloudscaler](https://rebrand.ly/cloudscaler), [Rayo](https://rebrand.ly/rayo-cloud) & [The Scale Factory](https://rebrand.ly/scalefactory) Programme: 18:00: Arrival, registration 18:15: Talks start 20:00: Networking with food and a drink provided by the generosity of our sponsors. Talk 1: ***AgentCore vs Reality: Lessons from Building AI Agents on AWS with Marina Kim*** In this talk, I will explore the reality of what happens when you try to build an AI agent on AWS using Amazon Bedrock and tool calling, inspired by still new and emerging AgentCore patterns. Through a live demo and practical examples, I’ll walk through what worked, what didn't work, and the unexpected challenges that appear when moving from theory to implementation, including hallucinations, incorrect tool usage, and trade-offs around cost and latency. The goal is to give a realistic, engineering-first perspective on building agentic systems today, and help developers understand where these patterns are useful and where they still fall short. By the end of this talk, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to approach building AI agents on AWS, what pitfalls to expect, and how to make informed decisions when applying agentic patterns in real-world systems. **Learning Takeaways** * How to approach building AI agents on AWS using Amazon Bedrock and tool calling, with focus on emerging AgentCore patterns * What actually happens when you move from theory to implementation, including common failure modes like hallucinations, incorrect tool usage, and overconfident decisions. * How to iteratively improve an agent by testing, identifying issues, and introducing guardrails and constraints * How to evaluate trade-offs between autonomy, reliability, cost, and latency in agentic systems **Marina** is a Tech Lead at Vidatec working with web, mobile, MS Teams and AI solutions across multiple industries. She has significant experience working with AWS services, managing deployments and maintenance across multiple production workloads. Marina is a founder of Catbytes - online community for women in tech and a co-organiser of AWS UG UK and AWS AI In Practice community events Talk 2: ***Best in Show: Building a Crufts-Ready AWS Business Platform in 5 Weeks with Damien Jones*** A new dog training business is launched. You have 5 weeks to develop a new production-ready platform before Crufts: the world's biggest dog show. Could you deliver? In this talk, I'll share the real-world journey of building WolfieAndFriends on AWS. We'll review my architectural choices, "build vs buy" decisions and the trade-offs made during those hectic early days. You'll learn how to use AWS serverless, IaC and AI services to enable rapid delivery, shorten development times and transform a greenfield project into a professional, scalable platform that pays the bills. Whether you're a startup founder or an enterprise dev, you'll walk away with a blueprint for rapid delivery without sacrificing long-term stability. Expect Amplify, CDK, Q Developer, Kiro and more! **Learning Takeaways** * How to make fast, defensible architectural decisions under genuine time pressure. * How to use AWS CDK, Amplify Gen 2, Q Developer, and Kiro as an integrated rapid-delivery stack. * Practical "build vs buy" trade-offs: what to own, what to delegate, and how to decide. * How serverless IaC enables safe iteration from greenfield to production. * A reusable blueprint for going from zero to a scalable, paying platform in weeks — not months. **Damien** is an AWS consultant, data specialist, and cloud enthusiast with a strong record of designing, building, and optimising cloud-native solutions. He has extensive knowledge of data engineering, DevOps and cloud architectures, fueled by a passion for using emerging technologies to solve complex problems and support data-driven decision making. Damien is also active in the cloud community, serving as a content creator, user group leader and public speaker. **Do you have a story to share?** If you are interested in speaking at one of our events, please check out our [call for papers here](https://awsuguk.org/call-for-papers/). We are advocates for greater inclusion & diversity in UK Tech and are especially keen to receive talk submissions from people in underrepresented groups. If you are interested in speaking at a future meetup but would like to discuss what to expect or need assistance, please contact our Inclusion & Diversity Lead Natalie Gray - graynataliej@gmail.com or DM her [@natjgray](https://twitter.com/natjgray) Check out our [website](https://awsuguk.org/) for more information about our community and our code of conduct. Remember to follow us [@AWSUserGroupUK](https://twitter.com/AWSUserGroupUK) and on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aws-ug-uk) for the latest updates, and you can find videos of our past meetups [here.](https://awsuguk.org/our-videos/)

Join our fun and challenging **upper intermediate coaching sessions**—perfect for players looking to improve their volleyball skills in a supportive and energetic environment. Each 2-hour session includes a structured warm-up, high-intensity drills, and game play. Participants should be comfortable with the 5-1 rotation, though exceptions may be considered. **Location**: Bacon's College, Canada Water **Time**: Wednesdays, 18:00 – 20:00 **Price**: £13 (Pay As You Go) *Pay by card or tap after the session* **Cancellation Policy**: Cancel by Tuesday at 18:00 We’re proud to be part of the **SQUAD Volleyball** family. These sessions offer players an exciting opportunity to grow, develop their game, and potentially join a SQUAD team competing in the London Volleyball Association leagues.

​Join us for an evening of conversation, food, and drinks with Platform Engineering, DevOps, and Engineering leaders exploring how AI is reshaping the future of software delivery and operational scale. ​As organizations move beyond AI experimentation, engineering teams are facing a new challenge: how to operationalize AI safely across the SDLC while maintaining governance, visibility, and developer velocity. ​We’re bringing together leaders building modern engineering platforms inside large-scale environments to discuss what’s actually working, where the market is heading, and the foundational shifts required to support autonomous engineering. ## ​What We’ll Discuss * ​Moving from AI assistants to AI systems that can safely take action * ​The platform engineering infrastructure required to harness the AI-SDLC * ​Governance, context, and control in agentic software environments * ​Real-world lessons from AI Native engineering organizations * ​Where Platform Engineering and Agentic Engineering are heading next ## ​Featured Conversation ​Leaders from Sportradar and Port will share practical stories of agentic engineering. ## ​Event Format * ​Fireside conversation * ​Peer-led discussion * ​Food & drinks * ​Curated networking with engineering leaders ​No product pitches. No lengthy presentations. Just practical conversations with leaders building the future of engineering. ## ​About Port ​Port is the agentic AEP (Agentic Engineering platform) leading companies to autonomous engineering. ​Port brings developers and agents together across the AI-SDLC with a shared Context Lake, Human & Agents collaboration experience, and Guardrails. Engineering teams get the freedom to build their own agentic workflow, without losing control. ​Trusted by engineering teams at GitHub, British Telecom, Yum!, dLocal, LG, and more.

[Follow this link to register for free](https://dbwm.eventogy.com/c/moorfieldsarttours/welcome) _You will need to bring Photo ID_ Curator led tours of the Deutsche Bank Collection take place in their London headquarters. All tours include a talk about the history and philosophy of the collection, a discussion about their main areas of activity and a guided tour of the reception spaces and meeting rooms in 21 Moorfields. The collection supports **new** artistic talent and original ideas, concentrating on works on paper and photography by international **contemporary** artists. [More about the art collection](https://country.db.com/uk/art/the-uk-collection) Followed by social at a nearby venue. _See comments below for updates_ *Limited capacity event: no-shows will be waitlisted to prioritise committed members*

​During AI Summit London, **Agora**, in collaboration with **Speechmatics** and **thymia**, is hosting a Voice AI Mixer bringing together product leaders, builders, and investors building and deploying voice-first AI applications at global scale. We will have panel discussions, demos, networking and happy hour. Register for free: https://luma.com/t5ntm46c

Join us for some fun, competitive, but friendly games at our 4-court sports hall. We use Hybrid Kawasaki Kong 500's during the 3-hour session. **PAYMENT** * **Session Fee: £12** * We are cashless, kindly pay the session fee **by midnight** on the night before the session. You are welcome to pay early! You can even pay when you book! See our About page for the full process. * If no payment is received, you will be removed and may even be liable for a late cancellation fee if your spot is not taken. * Please use **“your meetup name + date of event”** as payment reference * **Account name:** Thomas Lam * **Sort code:** 04-00-03 * **Account number:** 7478 8608 **LATE CANCELLATION OR NO-SHOW** * **All** **no-shows or late cancellations** (24 hrs or less) will be charged if your spot is not taken by someone else - you will have a title next to your name with the amount and date owed. * Members with 2 no shows/late cancellations will be removed from the group unless outstanding payment is received * **The late cancellation policy** is set up to discourage last-minute cancellations and therefore applies with or without the presence of a waitlist * **Note:** If you are on the Waitlist and a spot becomes available, you will automatically be bumped onto the On list provided the event has not yet started. It is your responsibility to **remove yourself from the waitlist** if you can no longer make it to avoid being charged a no-show if someone cancels late. **PLAYING** * Please wait to be marked off before entering the hall. * Sessions are to finish promptly on the hour by school requests. * If you finish a match with 5 minutes to go, please start packing up instead of starting a new game. **RACKET HIRE** * Please note that we won't be hiring out rackets, so kindly bring your own racket. **PARKING** * There is parking available, but it is now paid parking. Parking is opposite the entrance. Please check the signs for parking payment instructions. **TRACK & TRACE** * We will collect your phone number on-site. Your phone number will also be used in case of fire to contact you if you have not made it to the fire evacuation areas. You can see maps at the venue. We are excited to see you guys on the court! Team LSBC

🎉 Come along to the London Scala Talks for a deep dive into functional architecture! 🎉 In this event you'll hear from David Lebl and Przemysław Pokrywka. **Agenda** 6:00pm - 🥤 Doors open. Come along and grab a drink! 6:35pm - 🗣️ Introduction 6:40pm - 🗣️ Przemysław Pokrywka: Ports and Adapters for People on Tight Schedules 7:20pm - 🍕 Intermission: Join us for some free food and drinks! Vegan and vegetarian options are provided. Let us know if you'd like something special - we'd be happy to accommodate. 7:50pm - 🗣️ David Lebl: Complexity is a Sin, But Hexagons Forgive 8:30pm - 🥤 Socialising: Grab a drink and let's discuss the talks. 9:00pm - 🍻 Join us in a pub to discuss the talks! 🌐 **This event will not have a live stream** We hope to see you there in person. **🗣️ Przemysław Pokrywka: Ports and Adapters for People on Tight Schedules** Focus on software architecture is not always associated with pragmatism in common perception. Terms such as architecture astronautics and the ivory tower stereotype highlight the perceived disconnect between many architects and the realities of day-to-day code maintenance. Too often, architectural patterns are applied with insufficient understanding, leading to cargo-cult adoption and increased waste in the software development process. When applied in the right context, however, certain architectural approaches can be powerful enablers. In this talk, I would like to share the story of a serverless application in which elements of the Ports and Adapters architecture made a tangible, positive difference. ⭐ Przemysław Pokrywka ⭐ Husband, dad, grandad, software engineer. Functional Scala enthusiast with imperative OOP Java background. Fan of the command line. **🗣️ David Lebl: Complexity is a Sin, But Hexagons Forgive** A visual journey from spaghetti to sanity. This talk traces how cognitive load accumulates in unconstrained codebases, how domain-driven design and bounded contexts restore order, and how hexagonal architecture provides a practical, forgiving structure for real-world systems — all laid out on a single zoomable canvas where every example links back to the bigger picture. ⭐ David Lebl ⭐ David is a software developer with a CS background and 5 years of Scala and FP experience. He leads a small team, occasionally survives his own accidental complexity, and is here to share what he learned the hard way. ———————————————————— 🗣️ Would you like to present, but are not sure how to start? Give a talk with us and you'll receive mentorship from a trained toastmaster! Get in touch through [this form](https://forms.gle/zv5i9eeto1BsnSwe8) and we'll get you started 🏡 Interested in hosting or supporting us? Please get in touch through [this form](https://forms.gle/3SX3Bm6zHqVodBaMA) and we can discuss how you can get involved. 📜 All London Scala User Group events operate under the [Scala Community Code of Conduct](https://www.scala-lang.org/conduct/). We encourage each of you to report the breach of the conduct, either anonymously through [this form](https://forms.gle/9PMMorUWgBnbk1mm6) or by contacting one of our team members. We guarantee privacy and confidentiality, as well as that we will take your report seriously and react quickly.

**Important:** Register on the [event website](https://www.aicamp.ai/event/eventdetails/W2026061110) is required for admission. **RSVP on meetup is turned off** Welcome to the AI meetup in London, in collaboration with **Coder and Netmind**. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and Agents, hands-on experiences on code labs, workshops, and networking with speakers and fellow developers. **Agenda:** \* 6:00pm\~6:30pm: Checkin and Networking \* 6:30pm\~6:45pm: Welcome/community update \* 6:45pm\~8:30pm: Tech talks and Q&A \* 8:30pm\~9:30pm: Open discussion & Mixer **Tech Talk: Scale AI Workflows** **Speaker:** Eric Paulsen (Coder) **Abstract:** This meetup is for developers and platform teams who want to understand what it actually takes to move from AI experimentation to production-ready workflows. We’ll focus on how teams are redesigning their development workflows to work with AI, not just adding tools on top. That includes how to structure workflows, manage agents, and introduce the right level of control without killing developer velocity. No hype. No tool comparisons. Just a clear look at why most AI workflows fail and what actually works at scale. **Tech Talk: AI-DLC: Navigating the AI Development Lifecycle with Kiro** **Speaker:** Ryan Tan (AWS) **Abstract:** This session explores the evolving AI Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC) through the lens of Kiro's current capabilities and future direction. We'll cover Kiro's desktop/CLI deployment model and the path toward broader accessibility, early-stage developments around Kiro's upcoming autonomous agent capability, and how an agnostic philosophy — enabling choice of IDE, LLM backend, and cloud provider — shapes a flexible, developer-first approach to AI-assisted software development. Whether you're evaluating AI coding tools or architecting developer platforms, this session will give you a practical view of where the ecosystem is heading. **Tech Talk: Earning the Right to Step Away: AI Agents in Everyday Practice** **Speaker:** Billy Michael (GlobalLogic) **Abstract:** You've seen the demos. This is what happens after them. It's a look at the agents and skills we actually run inside GlobalLogic, day to day, on our own engineering and business work, and what it took to trust them. We started where most teams do: Claude Code in a terminal, with a human framing every task and pressing enter. The interesting part begins when no one is at the keyboard. I'll walk through the pattern we use to get there: build a skill by hand, live with it until it's boring, then let an event pull the trigger. The unit is always the same, a skill; what changes is how much autonomy the stakes justify. **Tech Talk: Trustable Agentic AI** **Speaker:** Xiangpeng Wan (Netmind) **Abstract:** NetMind.AI's [NarraNexus](https://www.narra.nexus/?utm_source=AI+Camp&utm_medium=Page&utm_campaign=20260611+Event) is a ready-to-run team of agents that already remember, collaborate, and use tools. Start from a template, or compose your own. **Speakers/Topics:** Stay tuned as we are updating speakers and schedules. If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: [Submit Topics](https://forms.gle/JkMt91CZRtoJBSFUA) **Sponsors:** We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 20,000+ AI developers in London and 500K+ worldwide.

The session is Every Thursday 7PM till 10PM. This is for all levels, so after the training you will be able to play games and use what you have learnt. Just like the saying practice makes perfect. Any queries on what levels you may be or just any questions please don't hesitate to contact us. PARKING: Parking is available and Free onsite. (The postcode is E15 3PA) This at the previous address on New mount Street. Press the buzzer and they will let you in. PAYMENT: We are accepting bank transfer rather than cash payments. In 2 days in advance to confirm your attendance. Bank Details: Name: The Badminton Collective Ltd Sort Code: 60-83-71 Account Number:69874292 Reference your name and date of the session. £13 Games IMPORTANT NOTES: We shall be starting at 7PM sharp so if you miss the start you'll have to just catch up I'm afraid. How to get there. If you use the provided postcode it will take you to the front of the school. By all means message me if you are having troubles. There is now a water fountain so please bring a bottle to fill up, this is in the main building while they fix the one near the sports Hall. The Badminton Collective and School 21 are not responsible for any injuries or loss of items.

We're excited to present Agent Craft. A one-day event for agent builders. **Note: This is a ticketed event and you cannot register on meetup. Please head over to [Luma](https://luma.com/AgentCraft2026) to secure your spot.** Topics: OpenClaw, Agent Security, Multi-Agent Teams, Agentic Automation, Context Engineering, Agent Orchestration, MCP, A2A, LangChain, Reliability, Evals, Claude Code, Agent Kit, Agentic Coding... and many more... **Morning Agenda:** * The Agent Hype Is Real, So Is the Mess (Fatima Sarah Khalid, Gitlab) * We Built A Self Improving Agent Business (Dr Phil Winder, HelixML) * Watch Our Team Of Agents Build A Team Of Agents (Rob Price & Maya Kolaska, Futuria) * Panel: Safe and Sane - Securing AI Agents * Luke Hinds, AlwaysFurther / nono.sh * Foluso Arewa, GeordieAI * Shaun Smith, HuggingFace & MCP Maintainer * Hannah Foxwell, BIMP.ai **Afternoon Agenda:** The afternoon agenda is co-created by you. We have space for 16 discussion groups so pitch your topic, find your people and start talking about the things that really matter to you. **Diversity, Accessibility and Inclusion:** Please complete [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwSXwWgK7TPVZdPYNFwoq1tIvCzNbHYkqescj_S7aeu3yFFg/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=115769380058514854695) to apply for a free ticket.

The session is Every Thursday 7PM till 8PM. This is for all levels, so after the training you will be able to play games and use what you have learnt. Just like the saying practice makes perfect. Any queries on what levels you may be or just any questions please don't hesitate to contact us. PARKING: Parking is available and Free onsite. (The postcode is E15 3PA) This at the previous address on New mount Street. Press the buzzer and they will let you in. PAYMENT: We are accepting bank transfer rather than cash payments. In 2 days in advance to confirm your attendance. Bank Details: Name: The Badminton Collective Ltd Sort Code: 60-83-71 Account Number:69874292 Reference your name and date of the session. £15 for Training and Games IMPORTANT NOTES: We shall be starting at 7PM sharp so if you miss the start you'll have to just catch up I'm afraid. How to get there. If you use the provided postcode it will take you to the front of the school. By all means message me if you are having troubles. There is now a water fountain so please bring a bottle to fill up, this is in the main building while they fix the one near the sports Hall. The Badminton Collective and School 21 are not responsible for any injuries or loss of items.

Join us for the **Cloud Native & Open Source AI Conference**, a full-day, in-person event bringing together engineers, architects, platform teams, AI practitioners, technical leaders, and open-source communities working at the intersection of **cloud-native infrastructure, open-source AI, and production-scale systems**. **MAKE SURE TO REGISTER HERE: https://www.communitystack.io/conferences/cloud-native-london USE CODE: CommunityStack for a free ticket** ## Opening Keynote **Evolving the Kubernetes User Experience: More Intuitive, More Extensible, More Agentic** With: **Andrew Randall** — Principal PM, Office of the CPO, Microsoft **Pal Lakatos-Toth** — Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Kubernetes has become the default platform for modern workloads, and increasingly for AI systems. This keynote will explore how the Kubernetes user experience is evolving for both humans learning the platform and AI agents operating within it, with a focus on usability, governance and production readiness. ## Full Conference Programme **09:00 – 09:30** Doors Open **09:30 – 10:15** Opening Keynote: *Evolving the Kubernetes User Experience: More Intuitive, More Extensible, More Agentic* Andrew Randall, Microsoft Pal Lakatos-Toth, Microsoft **10:15 – 11:00** Panel: *From HFT to Enterprise Banking: The Talent War for Cloud Native, Open Source and AI Engineers* Moderated by Ethan Sumner, Community Stack Craig Whiting, RLS Search Jon Freedman, Quant Fin **11:30 – 12:00** *The Massively Parallel Agent Stack* Peter Bhabra, Doubleword **12:00 – 12:30** *Controlling AI Agent Access in Cloud-Native Engineering Workflows* Viola Lykova, nuclecode **12:30 – 13:00** *Preventing Silent Interpretation Errors at Scale* Maebh Booth, Senior Engineering Leader, Former M&S **14:00 – 14:30** *Prompt Driven Platforms: The Future of Self-Service Infrastructure* Salman Iqbal & Amir Tayabali, Appvia **14:30 – 15:00** *Platform as a Product: What Happens When We Treat Security as a User?* Hannah Foxwell, Bimp **15:00 – 15:30** *Beyond the Portal: Architecting AI-Native Platforms with CNOE and MCP* Hossein Salahi, Liquid Reply **16:00 – 16:45** *Intro to Apache Kafka on Aiven: From Managed Simplicity to Inkless Architectures* Hugh Evans, Aiven **16:45 – 17:15** Closing Keynote: *The Age of “Big Tech” is Over* Sean M Tracey, Mitchell Technologies **17:15 – 17:30** Closing Remarks Ethan Sumner, Community Stack Mercedes Moxon Greenfield, Community Stack ## Speakers We are delighted to welcome an exceptional speaker lineup, including: Andrew Randall — Principal PM, Office of the CPO, Microsoft Pal Lakatos-Toth — Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Peter Bhabra — Member of Technical Staff, Doubleword Viola Lykova — Senior Software Engineer, nuclecode Hannah Foxwell — Co-Founder, Bimp Sean M Tracey — Founding Technologist, Mitchell Technologies Craig Whiting — Director, RLS Search Jon Freedman — Chief Technology Officer, Quant Fin Ben Davison — Founder, Axiologik Salman Iqbal — Solutions Architect, Appvia Amir Tayabali — Tech Lead, Appvia Maebh Booth — Senior Engineering Leader, Former M&S Hossein Salahi — Senior Principal Engineer, Liquid Reply Jon Shanks — CEO, Appvia Hugh Evans — Senior Product Advocate, Aiven Ethan Sumner — Co-Founder & CEO, Community Stack Mercedes Moxon Greenfield — Co-Founder & CTO, Community Stack ## Sponsors and Partners This conference is made possible through the support of our sponsors and partners: **Headline Sponsor** BrainStation **Platinum Sponsors** Overmind Appvia Harvey Nash Axiologik **AI Native Sponsor** Nearform **Supporting Sponsors and Partners** RLS Search Doubleword Postman X4 Group Engaging Data BIMP Aiven If you'd like to get involved with a future event, please email: ethan.sumner@communitystack.io

Sleep, Rest & Connection: Building Our Community Together Join us for the next gathering of The Pause Collective — a supportive meetup for neurodivergent women navigating perimenopause, menopause, burnout, overwhelm, and life transitions. Since many of us haven't yet had the opportunity to meet, we'll begin by getting to know one another and sharing what brought us to this community. We'll also explore one of the most common challenges many women experience during this season of life: sleep. Whether you're navigating insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night, racing thoughts, night sweats, exhaustion, burnout, or simply not feeling rested, you're not alone. This will be a relaxed, low-pressure coffee shop meetup focused on connection and conversation. No need to prepare anything. No pressure to share. Come as you are. Together we'll: • Introduce ourselves and get to know one another • Share what brought us to The Pause Collective • Discuss sleep, rest, and energy during perimenopause and menopause • Exchange ideas, experiences, and support • Explore what topics we'd like to discuss in future gatherings • Continue building the kind of community we'd like to create together This space is neurodivergent-affirming, self-diagnosis-friendly, and supportive of different communication styles and energy levels. Quiet participation is welcome. Listening is participating. Whether you're looking for support, learning, friendship, or simply a place where you don't have to explain yourself, you are welcome here. I look forward to meeting you. — Dawn

NFT's are here to stay folks! This is a group for like minded people interested in understanding, leveraging, using, creating for, profiting from, trading too i suppose, NFT's.. everything around them, complexity, fear and exploits, best practices and more. **PLUS** This group will talk AI ART tools, techniques, artists, video, audio, prototypes and more in the AI assisted production space- ART specifically, but we can get into any aspect of some of the cooler things happening in AI in general.

Topic to be announced. **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Join the Columbus AI community for a special event. **Battle of the Personal Agents** is your chance to see what people are actually building with AI agents and personal automation systems. Whether you’re running OpenClaw, Hermes, or a completely custom solution, bring your agent and show the community how it works. We’re interested in real-world implementations: the problems your agent solves, how you use it day-to-day, how it’s hosted and managed, how you built it, and why you’ve chosen to keep using it. Live demonstrations are encouraged, so be prepared to show your code, architecture, workflows, and your agent performing real tasks. This is less about polished presentations and more about sharing practical experience, comparing approaches, and learning from one another. If you’d like to present, please contact Chris Slee (via meetup) before the event so we can allocate enough time for everyone’s demonstrations. Come ready to show what you’ve built, discover what others are doing, and maybe find a few ideas worth taking home. Whether you’re deep in the field or just getting curious, come connect with others building and exploring AI in Columbus. Sponsored by [Transform Labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/transformlabs/) Sign up also accessible via [Transform Labs Luma](https://luma.com/transformlabshq)

**The Behavior Gap: Where Products Win or Lose** Teams today have more data than ever, and yet many still struggle to understand why customers adopt, engage with, or abandon their products. Teams sprint, ship faster, and chase more signals… all while metrics stall and confidence drops. The missing piece isn’t more data. It’s often the behavioral insight between the metrics, explaining why the numbers move in the first place. Dashboards can tell you what customers did, but understanding why they did it (and how to influence what they do next) requires a deeper blend of insights. This session is about closing that gap. Drawing from real-world experience designing and scaling products as [ZoCo Design](https://zocodesign.com/)’s CEO, [Lacey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceypicazo/) will share how to cut through the noise and identify the insights that actually change behavior—moving people, and moving metrics. You’ll learn: * Why understanding customer behavior is a quant and qual challenge * How to spot the signals that actually predict behavior change * Where AI accelerates insight, and where it creates distraction * How to get meaningfully closer to customers, without adding more tools This talk reframes how to evaluate performance and identify what levers actually improve it, helping your team to make smarter bets with greater confidence. Every meaningful outcome is driven by behavior change. And when you know how to design for behavior, you stop guessing, and start building things that work. **About Our Speaker** [Lacey Picazo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceypicazo/) is the Founder and CEO of ZoCo, a healthcare product studio that turns complex, high-stakes ideas into products that drive real-world adoption. She partners with healthcare organizations to uncover critical care delivery insights, focus product strategy through behavior design, and build solutions that patients and providers actually use. Thanks to our 2026 sponsors: [Clarivoy](https://www.clarivoy.com), [What Box Consulting Group](https://www.whatboxconsultinggroup.com), [Conductrics](https://www.conductrics.com), and [Piwik PRO](https://piwik.pro) More info at [cbusdaw.com](https://cbusdaw.com)

Most people still use AI like a search box: type one question, get one answer, repeat. But the next step is AI agents: systems that can take a goal, break it into steps, use tools, remember context, and produce useful work for a human to review. In this beginner-friendly session, we’ll demystify what AI agents actually are — without hype or jargon. We’ll walk through practical examples of how agents can help with research, planning, writing, coding, operations, and personal productivity. We’ll cover: * What makes an AI “agent” instead of just a chatbot * How agents break tasks into steps * Where agents are genuinely useful today * Where they fail, hallucinate, or need human review * How to design simple AI workflows for your own work * A live demo of an AI agent-style workflow from start to finish No coding experience required. This is for anyone who wants to understand where AI tools are going and how to use them more effectively right now. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.