In the early days of the Web we helped shape the industry in Australia, bringing together the leaders who went on to create companies like Canva, Campaign Monitor and countless others.

Now as AI begins to transform society as the Web has done, we're doing it again.

Join us at the start of this journey.

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Get up to speed with the generative AI revolution

For almost 20 years Web Directions has helped web and digital professionals stay up to date with the technologies and practices of delivering world class experiences.

We've long covered AI and machine learning at our conferences and started Web Directions AI in 2017. In 2023, we'll dive deep into generative AI, and the opportunities for business, marketing, the creative professions and beyond.

Join us in Sydney very soon.

Register

Why attend?

Generative AI is already having profound impacts across industries and professions, and we're only at the beginning of what it's fair to call without hyperbole a revolution.

At Web Directions AI we'll cover the technologies and use cases, the opportunities and challenges of generative AI, with experienced experts not talking heads and 'thought leaders'.

Plus we'll be showcasing relevant research, and early stage companies developing related technologies here in Australia, as well as products and solutions relevant to you.

Who's it for?

Web Directions AI is designed for

  • professionals who currently use, or who are investigating using generative AI in their professional practice
  • decision makers using or evaluating the use of these technologies in their organisations

We'll help you

  • better understand the technologies and products relevant to your use cases, role and industries
  • develop a roadmap for adopting generative AI in your roles and organisations
  • avoid the hype and hone in on what is achievable and valuable today and the near future
  • LLMs
  • GPT
  • Machine Vision
  • Recommender systems
  • platforms
  • business
  • marketing
  • investing in AI
  • prompting
  • research
  • inspiration
  • connection
9:00 am

Welcome

, Web Directions

9:05 am

The state of play for AI in business right now

Andrew Chatfield, Founder / Principal Consultant A.I. Sherpa

Andrew Chatfield will set the scene for the use of generative AI in business today. What's hype, what's reality, and what you should be thinking about next.

9:30am

Business and Strategy–a conversation

Join our panel of experts to discuss the practical applications of AI in business right now across a broad range of business functions–from content to customer service. Panelists include Andrew Chatfield, Mathew Patterson from Help Scout, Matthew Newman from TechInnosens, and Scott Burns from the ABC, moderated by Mark Monfort.

10:20 am

Coffee and more!

Need a quick breather? Or why not share your thoughts with others attending? We'll be back soon.

10:50 am

The technology landscape

Kazjon Grace, Lecturer in Computational Design University of Sydney

Kazjon Grace will take us through the landscape of modern AI technology

From Large Langage Models and how they enable machines to understand and generate human-like text, to Diffusion Models which provide a powerful framework for modeling uncertainty and generating high-quality samples.

Along the way we'l touch on Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), all with the goal of equipping non experts with a broad understanding of the technologies of AI today.

11:20 am

The ins and outs of LLMs

Paul Conyngham, Co-founder Core Intelligence

Large language models are the key technology diving the generative AI revolution.

In this session we'll learn more about how they work, and what they can and can't do (yet). We'll touch on fine tuning, training your own models, open source and proprietary models to come away with a sense of the best strategy for specific use cases and organisations.

11:55 am

Agents and Auto-GPT

Mark Pesce, Broadcaster and Futurist

Almost overnight becoming on of the most popular open source projects on Github, and eliciting enthusiasm across the internet, Auto-GPT aims to perform complex tasks with little human intervention.

But what is Auto-GPT, and autonomous agents more broadly, what can they achieve? What do we need to be concerned about? That's what this session will cover.

12:10 pm

Machine Vision

Arafat Tehsin, Senior Manager EY

A little overlooked in the all the current generative AI hype, Machine Vision has numerous applications. So we'll take a look at the technology and its applications in this session

12:30 pm

Lunch

Grab some lunch and connect with speakers and fellow attendees at 'birds of a feather' tables.

2:00 pm

case studies

keen to see some real world applications of these technologies? We've rounded up some recent home grown projects and products to inspire you. Hear from Thierry Wendling from Atomi on LLMs in education, Anna Dixon from the ABC talking about their AI experiments, Ivy Hornibrook on Canva's new AI 'magic design' features and Mihail Dungarov on Applied LLMs in Finance.

3:00 pm

A prompt engineering deep dive

Tanya Dixit, Pouya Omran, ML Engineer, Senior Data Scientist Crayon

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and the results some people can get from LLMs and image generators and prompts does seem like magic. But is there more to it than just intuition and taste? Can you learn to be better prompt creator? Let's find out! (hint, you can).

3:45 pm

Afternoon coffee, tea and more

Catch your breath and get a coffee or tea and an afternoon pick me up

4:15 pm

Closing conversation: Risks and challenges

Unlike the with the early Web and social media few people are unthinkingly optimistic about AI and its applications.

Our expert panel will consider the harms, risks and challenges these technologies present, to help you minimize them, and mazimimize the value we can gain from AI. Hear from Michael Kollo, Paul Conyngham, Bec Johnson, and Raymond Sun. Moderated by Ajit Pillai.

5:00 pm

Happy hour (and a half),

Join us for a drink and great conversation to close the day. Great non-alcoholic options and food as well!

5:15 pm

The AI Startup Landscape

Annie Liao, Investor Aura Ventures

What's the Australian AI Landscape? Annie Liao, author of a recent excellent investment thesis for Generative AI, and the Generative AI Open Source Australian Market Map introduces us to the local AI startup landscape.

5:30 pm

The Big AI Mixer

Grab a drink and hear rapid fire introductions from Sydney AI startups.

Get aboard the train

Register for AI and get your seat on the most important train since the iPhone, the Web, or maybe even the silicon chip!

Choose your ticket

Add a pass to Web Directions Summit at an amazing price.

Web Directions AI

Web Directions AI + Web Directions Summit

Web Directions AI
July 21st

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Web Directions AI on demand videos

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Web Directions Summit
October 26th & 27th

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Our venue

Web Directions AI 2023 will take place in July at Aerial Conference Centre, UTS.

  • Level 7
  • 235 Jones Street Ultimo
  • (UTS Building 10)

Getting there:

There are numerous public transport options, and parking available on site.

Accommodation:

If you're coming from out of town, there are many hotel and serviced apartment style accomodation options close by.

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Partner with us

We work closely with our partners and their technologies to deliver world leading online conferences. Contact us for more on how we work can work with you to help you be even more awesome.

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Keep up to date with Announcements

Registrations will be open soon. Want to keep up to date with news about Web Directions AI? Let us know below and we'll email you as things develop. And why not follow us on Twitter?

Get noticed at AI

Partners

  • Do you provide platforms, tools and technologies for working with AI?
  • Are you a venture fund looking to invest in AI based startups?
  • Do you provide consulting and services to companies looking to leverage AI?

Partner with Web Directions AI to connect with the right people.

Download Details

(no we won't make you fill in a form and harvest your brain)

Startups

Are you a startup working in the AI space looking to showcase your work to an enthusiastic crowd of decision makers and early adopters in business, development and the creative professions?

Apply for a free place in our AI startup showcase.

Apply Now

Research

Doing research on LLMs, machine learning, machine vision, recommender systems, or related areas that may be of interest to our attendees? If so, we'd love to showcase your research at Web Directions AI.

Apply for a free place in our AI research showcase.

Apply Now

Web Directions Summit 2023

Sydney, October 26th & 27th, 2023

Our legendary Web Directions Summit returns in-person, October 26th & 27th, bigger and better than ever.

In 2023, we'll feature brand new product and growth marketing, and design systems tracks, alongside our front end dev, react ecosystem, content design product design, and product management tracks.

Learn More

Partner with us

We work closely with our partners and their technologies to deliver world leading online conferences. Contact us for more on how we work can work with you to help you be even more awesome.

Techcentral logo
DSAI logo

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About Us

Co-founded and now run by John Allsopp, Web Directions has for nearly 20 years brought together leading developers, engineers, visual, IxD, UX and product designers, Art and Creative Directors, product managers indeed everyone involved in producing web and digital products to learn from one another, and the World's leading experts across this vast field.

We spend our lives thinking about what comes next, keeping up with trends in technology, practices and processes, and filtering the hype, to make sure you don't miss trends that matter, and don't waste time on hype that doesn't.

We promise attending one of our events will leave you significantly better versed in the challenges you face day to day, and in solutions for addressing them.

vignettes from our events, social, speakers and more. Includes Hannah Donovan skylarking.

John Allsopp

John Allsopp has been working on the Web for nearly 30 years. He's been responsible for innovative developer tools such as Style Master, X-Ray and many more. He's spoken at numerous conferences around the World and delivered dozens of workshops in that time as well.

His writing includes two books, including Developing With Web Standards and countless articles and tutorials in print and online publications.

His "A Dao of Web Design" published in 2000 is cited by Ethan Marcotte as a key influence in the development of Responsive Web Design, who's acclaimed article in 2010 begins by quoting John in detail, and by Jeremy Keith as "a manifesto for anyone working on the Web".

Code of Conduct

For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.

As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.

If you have any concern or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us.