Web Summit 2026
What is public about Web Summit 2026 and what matters to us in it: the facts, the programme, the side events in Lisbon and the Algarve, and the news. Kept by the curator from public sources, each item linked; where something is unconfirmed, it says so. Read on 2026-11-01.
The facts
| name | Web Summit 2026 (Lisbon); Web Summit's own conference code is lis26 source |
|---|---|
| dates | 9 to 12 November 2026 source |
| opening night | Monday 9 November 2026: 'Opening Night' on Centre Stage from 18:00 (the title is still listed as 'Coming soon...'), then Night Summit 20:00-23:00 in Pavilion 5 (FIL), with regional meet-and-greets source |
| conference days | Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11 and Thursday 12 November 2026. The published schedule runs from about 10:00 to about 17:40 local time (Lisbon is on WET, UTC+0, in November) source |
| venue | MEO Arena and FIL, Rossio dos Olivais, 1990-231 Lisbon, Parque das Nações. The site's config still also gives the arena's old name, 'Altice Arena' source |
| attendance claimed 2026 | 70,000+ attendees (Web Summit's meetups and creator-programme pages). Over 15,000 companies a year, 10,000 of them startups, and over 2,500 exhibiting (Web Summit's evergreen 'what to expect' and startup-journey copy). Paddy Cosgrave told Tek Notícias that exhibition space is sold out, with more than 3,000 companies and 30,000 m2 of temporary halls. These are claims, not audited figures source |
| attendance 2025 reference | 2025 edition: 71,386 attendees from 157 countries, 1,857 investors from 86 countries, 2,725 startups from 108 countries, 869 speakers (Web Summit's own figures) source |
| speakers | Third parties report 850+ speakers. Web Summit's speakers page shows a first wave weighted towards Chinese AI and robotics companies (AgiBot, Manus AI, Unitree, Galbot, Replit, ModelBest, Xiaomi, Pony.ai, MiniMax, Tencent) source |
| tracks | 17 content tracks plus Centre Stage. The track pages are: AI Summit, Commerce Summit, Corporate Innovation Summit, Creative Summit, Cybersecurity Summit, Developer Summit, Energy Summit, Future of Work Summit, Growth Summit, Health Summit, Marketing Summit, MoneyConf, New Media Summit, Policy Summit, SaaS Summit, Sport Summit and Venture Summit. The schedule also filters by Masterclasses, Investor Masterclass, Startup Masterclass, Meetup, Night Summit, Press conference and Women in tech source |
| stages | Centre Stage (MEO Arena) and Stages 2-14 (for example Stage 8 = Cybersecurity Summit and MoneyConf, Stage 10 = Developer Summit and Energy, Stage 11 = Policy Summit, Stage 13 = AI Summit), Masterclass 1-5, Meetup 1-6, Developer Lounge, Community Space, Pavilion 5 (Night Summit) source |
| schedule status | Live and still being added to ('We're adding more every week'). 823 sessions were published when read on 2026-11-01: 20 on 9 Nov, 280 on 10 Nov, 303 on 11 Nov and 220 on 12 Nov source |
| tickets | General attendee: the page shows €1,595 and €1,297 excl. sales tax (probably the full price and the current offer). VIP: €1,950 and €1,585. Chairperson: €24,950 and €20,285. Investor: €0 (by application). Platinum Investor: €1,950. The registration FAQ prices a replacement ticket at €1,595 source |
| app | The Web Summit app (App Store and Google Play) holds your ticket QR code (needed to register), profile, chat, personal schedule, meetings, venue map, perks and jobs, and connection export source |
| night summit | This year Night Summit is on the show floor, in Pavilion 5 (FIL): Mon 9 Nov 20:00-23:00, Tue 10 Nov 18:00-21:00, Wed 11 Nov 18:00-21:00. Speed networking from 18:00, 100+ meetups, games. Accredited attendees only. Last entry 21:30, and after 17:00 the way in is the North Entrance near Moscavide metro source |
| women in tech | Women in Tech tickets are sold out. Web Summit says 40% of startups at the 2025 edition were women-founded. The 7th annual Gender in Tech report was published on 27 Oct 2026 source |
| startup programme | The 2026 startup programme is sold out (applications for 2027 are open). Accepted startups get 3 tickets, investor meetings (15-minute pre-scheduled slots), and can apply for PITCH (105 contenders), Startup Showcase and Mentor Hours (45-minute group sessions). The ALPHA, BETA and GROWTH package names do not appear on the 2026 pages read; the schedule has a 'GROWTH Lounge' location source |
| investor programme | Investor ticket (free, by application): startup discovery tools, investor meeting area, Investor Masterclasses. Platinum Investor €1,950: adds invite-only side events, the Investor Lounge and fast track. 'Venture' is the investor gathering. There is also a Limited Partner (LP) offering source |
| developer programme | Free tickets for active open-source contributors, chosen by an AI review of applicants. The 2026 programme is sold out. There is a Web Summit Hackathon in the Developer Lounge: pre-hackathon meetup 10 Nov 12:30, hackathon 11 Nov, winners announced 12 Nov 13:45 source |
| press | Media accreditation by application at /media/. Web Summit lists media attendees including CNBC, Bloomberg Media, NPR, The Atlantic, WSJ, NYT, Reuters and The Guardian. Press releases, photos and videos are linked from the media page. The press-release list itself sits in a Google Sheet that is not public source |
| badge pickup | Collect your lanyard and wristband at Humberto Delgado Airport Terminal 1 (Sat 7 Nov 09:30-22:00; Sun 8 and Mon 9 Nov 07:30-22:00; Tue 10 Nov 07:30-15:00) or at Pavilhão de Portugal, Alameda dos Oceanos (Sat 7 and Sun 8 Nov 12:00-18:00; Mon 9 Nov 12:00-22:00; Tue 10 and Wed 11 Nov 07:30-17:00; Thu 12 Nov 07:30-16:45). Bring your ticket QR (in the app) and photo ID. Replacing one lost item costs €100. Times are subject to change source |
| getting there | Oriente metro station (red line) is about 300 m from MEO Arena and 600 m from Pavilhão de Portugal. From Baixa-Chiado, take the green line to Alameda and then the red line, or the blue line to São Sebastião and then the red line. Carris buses 705, 725, 728, 750, 759 and 794 stop at Gare do Oriente. There are taxi and ride-share drop-off points. Hotels are booked through the partner b-network. November weather is 12-18°C with rain possible, and many areas are outdoors source |
| opening hours | No overall venue opening hours are published. Known times: registration hours (above), sessions from about 10:00, Night Summit hours (above). Event-level listings give 09:00-18:30 (Algarve Evolution's listing; not official) source |
| wifi | Official event wifi is free throughout MEO Arena source |
| lisbon funding context | On 23 Sep 2026 Lisbon City Council approved €8M for Web Summit (more may follow), and is studying keeping the event until 2038 source |
Sessions that matter to us, by day
Tuesday 10 November
| When | Session | Speakers, as listed | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-10 | Free or controlled internet? The great DSA debate | Alexandra Geese (The European Parliament), Balázs Orban (European Parliament), Arba Kokalari (European Parliament), Luc Chénier (Kyiv Post) | Three MEPs debate the Digital Services Act: EU platform regulation from the people who vote on it. |
| 2026-11-10 | Your AI agent just got a passport | Benjamin Faes (RWS Group), Elena Poughia (Dataconomy Media) | Agent identity/credentials: matches our agent identity and keys work. |
| 2026-11-10 | Chat Control 2.0: The government in your DMs? | Michael McNamara (The European Parliament), Thomas Fazi (UnHerd), Esther Paniagua (Press and radio columnist) | Chat Control 2.0 and encryption: an MEP on the line between child protection and private communications. |
| 2026-11-10 | Has Europe’s tech moment arrived? | Henna Virkkunen (European Commission), Laura Greenhalgh (POLITICO) | EU Executive VP for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy: the EU regulatory frame (AI Act, sovereignty) our GRC work sits in. |
| 2026-11-10 | Dogfooding AI security: Lessons from our own SOC [Hosted by Elastic] | Practical AI security operations masterclass. | |
| 2026-11-10 | The agentic internet: Who controls the web? | Matthew Prince (Cloudflare), Nick Thompson (The Atlantic) | Agentic web and who controls access: directly our 'what can an agent reach' theme. |
| 2026-11-10 | A guide to Portugal's startup scene [Hosted by Startup Portugal] | Portugal startup ecosystem: our Algarve and Portugal community work. | |
| 2026-11-10 | 🇵🇹 Lisbon founders & CEOs meetup | Official Lisbon founders and CEOs meetup: the local startup scene. | |
| 2026-11-10 | Regulating big tech | Des Hogan (Data Protection Commission), Abigail Slater (The US Government), Andrew Sollinger (Foreign Policy Magazine) | Ireland's Data Protection Commission on regulation: GRC and data protection. |
| 2026-11-10 | Trust issues: Letting AI agents into production safely [Hosted by Delinea] | Agents in production under identity/privilege controls: core to agents with a mandate. | |
| 2026-11-10 | The attack has started, now what? See Log360 & Zia AI in action [Hosted by ManageEngine] | José Fonseca (ManageEngine) | Hands-on incident response and automated playbooks, delivered in Portuguese: practical security ops for the local audience. |
| 2026-11-10 | Building security for the human-machine era | Xiaoguang Chen (Eversec Technology) | Security for human-machine systems (Policy Summit). |
| 2026-11-10 | Building a secure device foundation for AI [Hosted by Lenovo] | Burke Stephenson (Lenovo), Bernard Wolff (LEnovo) | Device security foundation with local and hybrid AI: data exposure and control when AI runs on endpoints. |
| 2026-11-10 | The knowledge your agents can't see: Building visual context | Joe McElroy, Yannis Roussos | Developer session on agent context. |
| 2026-11-10 | 🧭 Let's talk AI ethics & responsible tech meetup | Official AI ethics and responsible tech meetup: ethicists, policymakers and technologists to meet. | |
| 2026-11-10 | Who takes the fall for autonomous AI? | Maike Kauffmann (Purpose), Stavros Gadinis (Berkeley Center for Law and Business), Sam Kidd (LawVu) | Accountability and liability for autonomous AI: GRC and mandate questions. |
| 2026-11-10 | Double agents: Are your employees' AI agents working for or against your business? | Jordi Romero (Factorial) | Shadow/employee agents as an insider risk: our insider and behaviour-policy themes. |
| 2026-11-10 | What does a self-driving company look like? | Michele Catasta (Replit) | Replit on a company run by agents, which it says needs the right security, governance and controls: agent governance in practice. |
| 2026-11-10 | 🐙 Open source & contributors meetup | Official open source and contributors meetup: people to meet. | |
| 2026-11-10 | How to break your AI phone agent before your customers [Hosted by Twilio] | Bianca St Louis (Twilio) | Testing AI voice agents with thousands of calls before launch: adversarial testing of agents. |
| 2026-11-10 | Whose AI is it anyway? | Carl Miller (Kill List), Lawrence Snapp (TrustScale), Renée DiResta (Georgetown University), Carmem Domingues (Future Government Institute), James Ball (The New World) | Control and governance of AI, with TrustScale on the panel. |
Wednesday 11 November
| When | Session | Speakers, as listed | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-11 | Monitoring in the age of GenAI: Beyond golden signals [Hosted by Datadog] | Clara Jacintho (Datadog) | Monitoring GenAI beyond golden signals: hallucination, PII leakage and cost as measurable signals. |
| 2026-11-11 | Do we need a UN AI treaty? | Mary Robinson (The Elders), Charles Pellegrin (France 24) | Mary Robinson on whether the world needs a binding UN treaty on AI: global AI governance. |
| 2026-11-11 | The AI agent economy | Dr. Durga Malladi (Qualcomm), Dayana Sarkisova (TIME) | Agent economy framing (Qualcomm, TIME). |
| 2026-11-11 | Who wins in the age of agentic AI? | Ling Ge (Tencent), Sam Stephenson (Granola), Amit Katwala (Wired) | Centre Stage view of the agentic market. |
| 2026-11-11 | Why your AI agents don’t understand your business – and how to fix it | Philip Rathle (Neo4j) | Neo4j CTO on knowledge graphs for agents: our graphs work. |
| 2026-11-11 | The next digital frontier | Miguel Albuquerque (Madeira), Vahan Agopyan (Government of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Eleanor Pringle (Fortune) | Madeira's regional president on building a digital economy and AI in government: Portugal's own tech policy. |
| 2026-11-11 | Putting human rights into artificial intelligence | Michael O'Flaherty (Council of Europe), Paul Tighe (The Vatican), Georja Calvin-Smith (France 24) | Council of Europe on human rights in AI and constitutional approaches by AI companies: AI governance and standards. |
| 2026-11-11 | Building AI on your own terms: From technology discovery to real-world scale | Ronnie Sheth (SENEN GROUP), Mike Nguyen (Inflect), João Nuno Ferreira (National Centre for Advanced Computing), Luc Chénier (Kyiv Post) | Portugal's National Centre for Advanced Computing on moving from AI dependency to sovereignty. |
| 2026-11-11 | Why AI agents stall at the production line | Mazin Gilbert (Linux Foundation), Tom Stackpole (Harvard Business Review Group) | Linux Foundation on why agents fail to reach production: the non-functional requirements argument. |
| 2026-11-11 | The Portuguese economic success story | Joaquim Miranda Sarmento (Government of Portugal), Giovanna Faggionato (POLITICO) | Portugal's Finance Minister: Portugal context. |
| 2026-11-11 | Don’t feed shit to agents | Rijk van Zanten (Directus), Simon Ince (Lush), Mafalda Freire (businessIT - PC Guia) | Data quality for agents (Directus, Lush). |
| 2026-11-11 | AI sovereignty: Data control, governance and predictable AI costs [Hosted by Austriacard Holdings] | Christos Rizos (AustriaCard) | Running agentic AI on-premises and air-gapped, with data control and governance: sovereign agent deployment. |
| 2026-11-11 | Beyond the AI agent hype | Georg Zoeller (Centre for AI Leadership (C4AIL)), Ned Koh (Aaru), Tariq Krim (Human intention), Jeff Wilser (AI-Curious) | Critical panel on agent claims. |
| 2026-11-11 | When AI verifies AI | Mohammad Asad Khan (TestMu AI) | AI-based verification/testing of AI: assurance. |
| 2026-11-11 | In bots we trust: Defending money against AI-powered fraud | Rick Song (Persona), Ian Rogers (Ledger), João Miguel Mesquita (Digital Inside) | Identity and fraud with AI (Persona, Ledger). |
| 2026-11-11 | Open vs closed: The debate defining the AI era | Chon Tang (SkyDeck Ventures), Alvin W. Graylin (Stanford HAI), Carmem Domingues (Future Government Institute), Neil Lawrence (Trent AI), Amit Katwala (Wired) | Open versus closed AI models and national security: the policy frame for open-source agents. |
| 2026-11-11 | Give me a brake: Coding without crashing | Edith Harbaugh (LaunchDarkly), Daniela Braga (Defined.ai), Kit Eaton (INC) | Feature flags and training data as the emergency brake for AI-generated code: control and rollback for agent-written software. |
| 2026-11-11 | Make AI agents work beyond the demo [Hosted by Make] | Valery Mezencev (Make) | Moving agents from demo to dependable business processes: the production-readiness question we write about. |
| 2026-11-11 | Building AI in Europe: Practical support for innovators [Hosted by European Commission - DG Connect] | European Commission DG Connect on EU support for AI, including regulatory guidance: the nearest the schedule gets to AI Act help. | |
| 2026-11-11 | Coaching an AI agent like human talent | Nikola Mrkšić (PolyAI), Ania Lichtarowicz (Somewhere on Earth: The Tech Global Podcast) | Agents that coach and improve other agents, with human decision points (PolyAI): oversight design. |
| 2026-11-11 | Viable systems, judgement, and AI safety | Neil Lawrence (Trent AI) | AI safety and judgement (Neil Lawrence). |
| 2026-11-11 | The autonomous enterprise: Networks, cloud and AI agents | Mauricio Sion (SGF Global), José Pedro Nascimento (MEO), Marta Dhanis (MD Media Fusion) | MEO's CTO on autonomous networks and AI agents: a major Portuguese operator's agent plans. |
| 2026-11-11 | Agents don't need prompts, they need context | Milkana Brace (SageOx) | Agent context engineering. |
| 2026-11-11 | AICEP: Connecting Portuguese startups to global markets [Hosted by AICEP] | Pedro Silveira (AICEP Portugal Global ), Alexandra Ferreira Leite (AICEP), Miguel Garcia (AICEP), João Falardo (Trade and Investment Promotion Agency of Portugal -AICEP Portugal Global ) | Portuguese startups going global: Portugal ecosystem. |
Thursday 12 November
| When | Session | Speakers, as listed | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-12 | AI vs. AI: The battle for the cyber advantage | Zeki Turedi (CrowdStrike) | Opening Cybersecurity Summit talk on AI offence and defence (CrowdStrike). |
| 2026-11-12 | When AI agents go rogue | Satya Nitta (Emergence) | Agent failure modes and control: core to behaviour policies. |
| 2026-11-12 | Outsmarting AI: Defence at machine speed | Sumit Dhawan (Proofpoint, Inc.), Alexandre Neves (Grupo Renascença Multimédia) | AI-era defence (Proofpoint). |
| 2026-11-12 | Taming the agent swarm | Kirill Skrygan (JetBrains) | Managing many coding agents (JetBrains CEO): our multi-agent team practice. |
| 2026-11-12 | Frontline Europe: AI, sovereignty and truth | Jan Lipavský (Government of Czech Republic), Miroslav Wlachovský (government of Slovakia), Maty Bohacek (Stanford University), Tomáš Klvaňa (Aspen Institute Central Europe) | Czech and Slovak ministers on AI sovereignty, verifying information and disinformation: trust and provenance at state level. |
| 2026-11-12 | The biological bottleneck | Calum Chace (Conscium), Nicholas Muy (Scrut Automation), John Koetsier (Forbes, Freelance) | Human oversight of autonomous agents in security, with a compliance-automation speaker (Scrut): oversight is our governance question. |
| 2026-11-12 | Connecting the bots: Building secure infrastructure for inter-agent communication | Ethan Byrd (Primitive) | Secure agent-to-agent communication: our agent keys and sealed messages. |
| 2026-11-12 | When agents write the code, does a framework like Angular still matter? | Grzegorz Lipke | Community talk on what changes when agents write the code: developer practice in the agent era. |
| 2026-11-12 | The attackers are open source. The defences aren't. | Anne Bertucio de Hollembeak (Robust Open Online Safety Tools), Rebecca Ruiz (Mashable) | Open-source safety tooling (ROOST): our open-source stance. |
| 2026-11-12 | Big Tech detox | Raphael Auphan (Proton), Jon von Tetzchner (Vivaldi), Lisa Eadicicco (CNN) | Proton and Vivaldi on digital sovereignty and leaving surveillance stacks: privacy and control of one's own data. |
| 2026-11-12 | An AI identity crisis | Andrew Sever (Sumsub), Jacob Sever (Sumsub), Marina Khaustova (Crystal Intelligence), Robert Booth (The Guardian UK) | Identity verification in the AI era (Sumsub). |
| 2026-11-12 | Beyond the model: Scaling AI agents for professional work | Jacob Lauritzen (Legora), Niall Firth (MIT Technology Review) | Agents professionals can trust with high-stakes legal work (Legora): trust in agent output. |
| 2026-11-12 | Who let the agent in? | Diogo Guerra (Feedzai), Shrikesh Laxmidas (ECO) | Agent access control in SaaS (Feedzai CTO, Portuguese company). |
| 2026-11-12 | 🔐 People in cybersecurity meetup | Official cybersecurity meetup: people to meet. | |
| 2026-11-12 | Can you trust your AI agent's accessibility? [Hosted by Deque] | Dylan Barrell (Deque Systems) | AI agents writing accessible, EAA-compliant code with an MCP server: agents, MCP and an EU regulation in one session. |
| 2026-11-12 | It takes two to trust: Operationalizing public-private security | Anthony Grieco (Cisco Systems, Inc.), Ollie Whitehouse (National Cyber Security Centre), Rebecca Ruiz (Mashable) | Cisco Chief Security and Trust Officer with the UK NCSC CTO: trust and public-private security. |
| 2026-11-12 | Is there a foreign operative on your payroll? | Ryan LaSalle (Nisos) | Insider-identity case study (a North Korean operative hired remotely): proving who someone is, the human side of identity. |
| 2026-11-12 | Who holds the kill switch? | Edith Harbaugh (LaunchDarkly), Rob Pegoraro (PCMag) | Control and kill switches for AI-driven software (LaunchDarkly). |
| 2026-11-12 | Democratising AI platform engineering with open-source [Hosted by Cisco Systems] | Alfonso (Poncho) Sandoval Rosas (CIsco Systems) | Open-source AI platform engineering (CAIPE, a CNCF Sandbox project): fully FOSS tooling for small teams. |
| 2026-11-12 | 🧳 Founders building in Portugal meetup | Official meetup for founders building in Portugal. | |
| 2026-11-12 | Securing the software foundation of civilisation with AI | Stanislav Fort (Aisle) | AI for software security (Aisle). |
| 2026-11-12 | (A)Identity: Auth tips to secure AI agents and MCP servers | Samudra Gupta (Descope) | Auth for AI agents and MCP servers: directly our agent identity work. |
| 2026-11-12 | Beyond the prompt: Building resilient systems in the vibe coding era | Rob Pegoraro (PCMag) | Who fixes vibe-coded prototypes at scale: developers shifting to architecture, security and reliability. |
| 2026-11-12 | Zombie data: How your data comes back to haunt you | Marijus Briedis (NordVPN) | Stolen session cookies and profile data bypass passwords and MFA: identity and session trust, the core of our key work. |
| 2026-11-12 | Securing the AI frontline | Paul Jenkinson (Whitespace), Giovanni Alberto Falcione (Exein), Sinéad O'Sullivan (Harvard Business School/Harvard Business Review), Mehul Srivastava (Financial Times) | State actors targeting autonomous systems and critical infrastructure: security of the systems agents will run. |
| 2026-11-12 | Building AI products without building everything [Hosted by Open VSX] | Thomas Froment (Eclipse Foundation), Jamie Ayala (Open VSX) | Open VSX and the Eclipse Foundation on how open-source foundations underpin AI developer tools like Cursor and Windsurf. |
| 2026-11-12 | Pricing SaaS when users are agents | Edith Harbaugh (LaunchDarkly), Joshua Wöhle (Mindstone), Jeremy Goldman (FUTUREPROOF Podcast) | Pricing when the users are agents, not seats: how agent identity changes the commercial model of software. |
| 2026-11-12 | The real threat isn’t a nation-state, it’s a teenager. | John Madelin (The Hacking Games), Conor Freeman (The Hacking Games) | Real attacker data from young AI-equipped hackers: grounds threat models in what actually gets in. |
| 2026-11-12 | Be part of history: help build the first pages of the agentic web | Babak Hodjat (Cognizant) | Live workshop building interconnected multi-agent systems with open-source tools: hands-on agent interop for developers. |
| 2026-11-12 | Beyond the front door: Identity, access, and user trust | Rick Song (Persona), Art Gilliland (Delinea), Cristina Nascimento (Rádio Renascença) | Identity, access and trust (Persona, Delinea). |
| 2026-11-12 | AI sprawl is exploding. Get ahead of governance and security challenges before it’s boo late | Kevin Kiley (Airia AI) | AI governance and security sprawl (Airia). |
| 2026-11-12 | The perimeter is dead. So what happens to trust? | Gerasim Hovhannisyan (EasyDMARC, Inc.), Sonia Azzouzi Boudie (iBanFirst), Niall Mackey (Topsec Cloud Solutions) | Trust after the perimeter: deepfake identity fraud and phishing; our trust and identity theme on the Cybersecurity Summit stage. |
| 2026-11-12 | Search built for AI agents | Will Bryk (Exa) | Infrastructure for agents searching the web: what an agent can reach and how good its sources are. |
| 2026-11-12 | Rebuilding open source with AI: Lessons Learned | Søren Bramer Schmidt (Prisma) | Prisma's CEO on rewriting Prisma with coding agents and what it means for open-source libraries. |
| 2026-11-12 | Brazil's blueprint for cyber resilience | Wilton Itaiguara Gonçalves Mota (Serpro) | Sovereign cloud as a pillar of national cybersecurity (Brazil's Serpro): sovereignty and control, a governance theme. |
Side events, in Lisbon and the Algarve
- 2026-10-31, 09:00-18:00 Vibathon Algarve 2026 (past), UAlg TEC Campus, Faro (University of the Algarve): Algarve Evolution and Lovable's sold-out one-day AI build event. Dinis Cruz spoke after António Guerreiro. Already happened: background for our Algarve meetups
- 2026-11-02 to 2026-11-07 (online 2-3 Nov, in person 5-7 Nov) Tourism Management & Computing Technologies International Conference (TMCT'26), Hotel Pestana Alvor Praia, Portimão, Algarve: Academic and practitioner conference on AI and automation in tourism. Listed by Algarve Evolution as an 'AE Partnership' event
- 2026-11-06 to 2026-11-15 Portugal Tech Week 2026, Nationwide (decentralised), including Lisbon: 5th edition. More than 300 tech and innovation events across Portugal: conferences, workshops, startup competitions, AI events. The site takes event submissions
- 2026-11-06, 15:00-18:00 Private Wealth & Investment Gathering, Almancil, Algarve (exact location given on sign-up): Invitation-only afternoon by Sotavento Invest (Sotavento Angels) and Atlas Bridge Wealth for investors, angels and founders. Listed on Algarve Evolution's events page
- 2026-11-07, 08:30-18:00 (sessions from 09:15) DevFest Lagos 2026 (GDG Lagos), Lagos, Algarve (venue not given in the listing): Google Developer Group Lagos DevFest, in English, with lunch included. Agenda 'to be announced'. An 'AE Partnership' listing
- 2026-11-07, 13:30-17:15 Startup Web Summit Kick Off (football tournament, 2nd edition), Estádio da Tapadinha, Lisbon: 7-a-side startup football tournament by Manie with Unicorn Factory Lisboa, Atlético Clube de Portugal, Shakers and The Next Big Idea. €15 per person
- 2026-11-08 Tech Run Lisboa (3rd edition), Unicorn Factory Lisboa, Beato Innovation District, Lisbon: A 30-minute run on the eve of Web Summit (cover the most distance you can)
- 2026-11-09, 18:00 (Opening Night, Centre Stage); 20:00-23:00 (Night Summit, Pavilion 5) Web Summit Opening Night and Night Summit regional meet-and-greets, MEO Arena and FIL Pavilion 5: Official opening. The meet-and-greets include Iberia (20:00, Meetup 4), UK (20:00, Meetup 5) and Europe (22:00, Meetup 1)
- 2026-11-10, 17:00-20:00 UniVerse 2026: Entrepreneurial Academy, Pavilion of Portugal / Centro de Congressos ULisboa: 9 Portuguese universities: startup competition, tech demos, networking. Listed on the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 17:30-20:00 Building a Tech Hub: Side Event & Happy Hour (Aubay Portugal + IBM), IBM Portugal (3-minute walk from the main stage): Discussion on building a tech hub, then food and drinks. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 17:30-20:30 Coimbra Supernova: How Any Business Can Profit from the Space Economy, Parque das Nações: Space value chain, data and AI services. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 17:30-22:30 German-Brazilian Startup Night, Gale patio: Startup Germany Night, this year with ApexBrasil. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 17:00-19:00 AUSTRIA BUSINESS NIGHT 2026, Centro Vasco da Gama: Austrian ecosystem networking. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 19:00-22:00 An Evening with Elastic in Lisbon, Palacete dos Condes de Monte Real: Elastic dinner and networking (Elastic also runs the AI-security SOC masterclass that day). On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 17:30-19:00 Diaspora Leaders: A Global Innovation Meetup, Soul kitchen & bar: Black Innovation Alliance with Black in Portugal. Free entry
- 2026-11-14, 09:30-13:30 In-Person AI Workshop, Portimão (Claude ecosystem, in Portuguese), BrilhaVértice – Formação Profissional, Portimão: Hands-on 4-hour workshop on the Claude ecosystem for businesses. After the summit; listed by Algarve Evolution
- 2026-11-19, 21:00-23:00 Algarve Evolution: Open Mic Pitch Night (2nd edition), Faro: Open-stage pitches: no judges, no ranking. After the summit, a chance to follow up with the Algarve community
- not set Our own Algarve meetups before Lisbon, Algarve: The newsroom says the team will hold meetups in the Algarve before the summit. No date or venue has been published. UNCONFIRMED
- 2026-11-09 to 2026-11-13, 10:00-22:00 Portugal Tech Week Palace, PTW Palace, Rua Gomes Freire 98, Lisbon: Portugal Tech Week's flagship venue during the summit: five days of fringe sessions, with registration per event
- 2026-11-09, 10:00-11:30 Build Your Second Brain with Claude, PTW Palace, Rua Gomes Freire 98, Lisbon: Hands-on workshop on keeping personal context in one folder that Claude and other models can use. A Portugal Tech Week event
- 2026-11-10, 17:00-19:00 Superconnectors Lisbon 2026 @ Web Summit, Lisbon (venue not given on the page): Startups pitch an ask and a vetted audience bids introductions. Listed by Portugal Tech Week
- 2026-11-11, 11:30-12:30 Fake by Default: How to prove what's real, PTW Palace (Palacete Gomes Freire), Lisbon: Panel on authenticity, integrity and chain of custody of digital content, deepfake fraud and the 'liar's dividend'. Organised by Cybertech Acceleration with the 351 Portuguese Startup Association. Close to our provenance and trust theme
- 2026-11-11, 17:30-18:30 From Automation to Autonomy: How AI is changing the way we run technology (Cisco showcase), PTW Palace, Rua Gomes Freire 98, Lisbon: Cisco on the move from automation to agentic operations, and where to draw the line between machine and human decisions
- 2026-11-10, 18:00-22:30 Ukrainian Community Networking, IDB Rooftop by Mīrārī, Lisbon: Networking for Ukrainian founders and tech professionals; free with registration. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-10, 19:30-22:00 AI Content OS VIP Dinner: Costa Coffee lessons, Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, Lisbon (exact place shared after registration): Invitation-only dinner on AI content operations hosted by Sanity and Bejamas. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-11, 17:30-21:00 Work in Finland side event, Hotel Olissippo Oriente, Lisbon: Evening on working in Finland: an opening by the ambassador, a keynote and a panel. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-11, 18:30-21:30 Romanian Tech Night at Web Summit Lisbon 2026, Centre of Lisbon (venue not given on the page): Romanian startup networking evening with Romanian and Portuguese founders and investors. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-11, 19:00-22:00 AI Build Sprint: Ship a Business App for Your Ops, Hotel Tivoli Oriente, Lisbon: Build a no-code business app in 60 minutes with the Softr team. On the Web Summit schedule
- 2026-11-12, 17:30-21:00 EIT Jumpstarter Awards Ceremony, Unicorn Factory Lisboa: Awards for EIT Jumpstarter 2026, the EU's EIT pre-acceleration programme, then a reception. On the Web Summit schedule
News about the summit
- Lisboa amplia Rede Unicorn Factory para 18 municípios
Lisbon's Unicorn Factory grows into a network across 18 municipalities of the metropolitan area, on SAPO's Web Summit 2026 hub. - Western Digital chief product officer discusses AI profitability at Web Summit
Ahmed Shihab will talk with Fortune's Jim Edwards about scaling AI sustainably, 10 Nov, 14:40-15:00. - Helical Fusion Co-Founder & CEO Takaya Taguchi to Speak at Web Summit 2026
Energy Summit session on 10 Nov (Stage 10). The date comes from search results; the EIN page blocked us, so it is not verified on the page. - Técnico will bring technology demonstrations and spin-off projects to Web Summit 2026
IST will have a stand with robots, VR and six spin-offs. - Legit Selected to Represent Croatia at Web Summit 2026 in Lisbon
A privacy-intelligence startup, one of six Croatian startups picked through HGK's PITCH2 competition. - Web Summit promete ser “campo de batalha” entre a Apple e a Europa
Apple's EU government affairs director Sébastien Gros will speak, and Apple's relations with the European Commission are expected to be the subject. - Apple’s European government affairs chief to speak at Web Summit 2026
Sébastien Gros confirmed as a speaker; the session topic was not announced. - Women are leading in tech. So why are so many considering leaving?
7th Gender in Tech report: half of respondents experience sexism, and 58% say they are not paid fairly. - Tech Run Lisboa desafia participantes a correr o máximo possível em 30 minutos na véspera do Web Summit
A 30-minute run on 8 Nov at Unicorn Factory Lisboa (Beato) on the eve of the summit. - Web Summit 2026: Lisboa volta a ser o centro mundial da tecnologia e da inteligência artificial
Preview: AI, robotics, startups and investors at the centre; recaps the 2025 figures (71,386 attendees). - Web Summit’s first state of the industry survey finds tech torn on AI
1,455 respondents: 55% say AI strengthens their thinking, 60% report a heavier workload, 42% expect smaller teams. - Unveiling the creators joining us at Web Summit 2026
Creator Programme line-up; repeats the claim of 70,000+ attendees. - Find out what customers stay for at Web Summit Lisbon 2026
Comarch Loyalty on the Corporate Innovation stage (10 Nov 16:55) and a masterclass (11 Nov 15:30). - Manie volta a juntar startups em torneio de futebol antes da Web Summit em Lisboa
Startup football tournament on 7 Nov at Estádio da Tapadinha. - Portugal Tech Week 2026 tem mais de 300 eventos de tecnologia e inovação previstos de norte a sul do país
Portugal Tech Week, 6-15 Nov, more than 300 events across Portugal. - E se todas as semanas fossem como a da Portugal Tech Week / Web Summit?
Opinion: November is the ecosystem's busiest week, and the piece proposes how to fill the empty months. - Paddy Cosgrave diz que Web Summit 26 esgotou espaço de exposição e conta com a estreia da Apple
Exhibition space sold out, 3,000+ companies, 30,000 m2 of temporary halls, and Apple and GLM exhibiting for the first time. - O balão da Web Summit: discursos insuflados, políticos aplaudidos
Critical opinion on the public money for Web Summit and Portugal's AI rhetoric. - Hisense leva nova geração MiniLED RGB e inteligência artificial à Web Summit 2026
Hisense will exhibit in FIL Pavilion 4. - Web Summit 2026 em Lisboa: o maior evento de tecnologia do mundo
Explainer: 9-12 Nov, 17 tracks on AI, startups and innovation.
From the SGit newsroom
- Web Summit 2026, the plan
Five people with tickets. Usage first, the sale after. Three tracks (intelligence from public material, outreach, content). An asset, a page and a link for each person, and a summit newsroom of our own. - One researcher for every newsroom
Design for a shared researcher at research.newsroom.sgit.ai that captures sources daily, including for the Web Summit newsroom. - A brief for the Web Summit team
Seven going. The brief for this event site run by an agent team: the company map from public material, roles (including curator), and the schedule to 12 Nov. - The Web Summit team, part two: humans and their agents
Seven people, each with an agent and a personal CRM. Voice memos become follow-ups within the hour. Merchandise is planned backwards from 9 Nov, and there are Algarve meetups before Lisbon. - Vibathon Algarve 2026
Debrief of Algarve Evolution's sold-out AI build day at UAlg TEC Campus, Faro (31 Oct), and who Algarve Evolution are. - Joining Algarve Evolution
The Cyber Boardroom takes the Start membership (€150/yr) and offers its open-source workflows and technology to the region, as a bridge to Web Summit. - An Algarve talent map
Proposal and prototype for a consent-first public matchmaking site built from Algarve Evolution's mapping. - Sell to the companies that already have the problem
Algarve Evolution matchmaking model: start when a business has built its own first app. - Spreadsheet to App: a session programme for Algarve Evolution
Session programme with five example spreadsheets, five prompts, a mock event and a public vault. - From a checklist to an app you calibrate
Advice given at the Vibathon: build the smallest version in half an hour, log every run, calibrate. - Villager services for explorer coders
The business behind founder-built apps, sold as finite packs (around £500, £2,000 or £5,000), never rent. - Two apps about what an agent can reach (José Bota)
Review of Hack the Agent and ReachCheck, built at the Vibathon by a collaborator. - A presentation for every project
After the Faro Vibathon: the agentic presentation workflow as a per-project service. - Books from articles
Plan to have books at Web Summit: agents with a mandate, graphs, a new Hacking Portugal, and making books this way. - Hacking Portugal, 2016
Dinis Cruz's BSidesLisbon 2016 keynote, revisited, and what a new edition for Web Summit in Lisbon needs.
What we could not confirm
- No Web Summit 2026 attendance figure is audited or final. '70,000+' is Web Summit's own claim, and the official 2026 numbers usually come out during the event (the 2025 numbers came out on 13 Nov 2025).
- The schedule is still growing ('adding more every week'). 823 sessions were published on 2026-11-01 (first count). Re-checked later on 2026-11-01 on the public date page https://websummit.com/schedule/date/2026-11-09/: the Opening Night (9 Nov 18:00, Centre Stage) is still listed as 'Coming soon...' with no speakers. No session for the press-confirmed Apple speaker (Sébastien Gros) appears in the Centre Stage track (39 sessions, https://websummit.com/schedule/), so re-check.
- No session title or description mentions the EU AI Act, NIS2 or DORA explicitly (re-checked on 2026-11-01 across the Cybersecurity, AI, Developer, Policy, SaaS, Corporate Innovation and Centre Stage tracks, the masterclasses and the meetups: 535 sessions). The regulation content found is Henna Virkkunen (EC), the DPC 'Regulating big tech', the DSA and Chat Control debates on the Policy Summit, a European Commission DG Connect masterclass that offers 'regulatory guidance' (ws26-s75), and a Deque masterclass on the European Accessibility Act (ws26-s55).
- Some session speakers are listed with no organisation (the Developer Lounge sessions and several masterclasses). They are left null as listed.
- The ALPHA, BETA and GROWTH startup package names were not found on the 2026 Web Summit pages read. Road 2 Web Summit (Startup Portugal) offers a discount on packages, according to a search snippet, but this is unconfirmed on the page.
- No overall venue opening hours are published. Only registration and Night Summit hours are official.
- Lisbon side events: there is no single public list. Web Summit lists off-site side events in its own schedule (13 found on 2026-11-01, all now in the feed). Portugal Tech Week (6-15 Nov) lists its events at https://portugaltechweek.com/events/; on 2026-11-01 only its home page and five Lisbon events were read, so its list is still incomplete. Altss lists zero side events. Luma and Eventbrite were not searched directly. No new Algarve events before the summit were listed by Algarve Evolution on 2026-11-01.
- No dates or venues are published for our own Algarve meetups before the summit (newsroom, 31 Oct).
- The Helical Fusion press release date (30 Oct) comes from search results; einnews.com blocked us.
- The Web Summit press-release list (a Google Sheet) is not public, so press releases are not in the feed.
- Some third-party pages (Lusa, Latvian LIAA, ECO) give other date ranges (8-12 Nov, 6-12 Nov). These are delegation or press windows; the official dates are 9-12 Nov.