humAIn 2027 · The human signal in the age of AI

What remains
irreducibly human
in the AI era.

AI can generate content, analyse information and automate decisions. What it cannot replace is human judgement, taste, responsibility and meaning.

Make AI work. Make the work matter.

Established in 2023, humAIn is the leading independent AI event for marketing, media and creative leaders to build practical AI skills, sharpen their judgement, and make informed decisions about brands, teams and growth.

Conference 21 October 2027

Case studies, demos, debate, and round tables. Build AI skills and products at masterclasses and workshops.

Explore the 2026 programme →
humAIn 2027 AI conference, Sydney
Featured speakers from
AI & Creative WorkThe Taste GapBrand Discovery in the AI AgeCulture as Training DataBuilding in PublicDebate & Dissent AI & Creative WorkThe Taste GapBrand Discovery in the AI AgeCulture as Training DataBuilding in PublicDebate & Dissent

humAIn 2027:

Conference - October 21 2027.

Tech Central, 477 Pitt Street.

Save the date. Super early bird tickets on sale soon.

Subscribe to our regular newsletter to stay up to date with the ideas, people and technologies reshaping media, marketing and the creative industries

Register for humAIn 2027

Two conversations,
one room.

01 — The premise
The builders

How AI works

Models, tools, capabilities, speed. The people shipping the systems; what's actually possible this quarter, and what's still hype.

The leaders

What AI means

For creativity, culture, jobs and decision-making. The marketers, creatives and leaders putting these systems to work in the real world.

Most events pick a lane. humAIn brings them together.

One room. A shared frame of reference.

AI conversations often happen at different altitudes. Technical possibility, creative ambition and business reality can feel like separate discussions.

humAIn brings them together. Our single-stream conference gives everyone a shared foundation: the same talks, different perspectives and the opportunity to question assumptions together.

We build a common language for what the technology can do, what it means for our work and where human judgement matters. That understanding carries into the roundtables, the conversations between sessions and the decisions we make afterwards.

We don’t need to agree on everything. But we make more progress when we share an altitude.

Explore the programme →

Who humAIn is for.

02 — The room
M

CMOs & marketing leaders

Using AI in brand & growth — navigating content velocity, AI search and what earns trust when machines mediate discovery.

In-house · Brand · Growth
F

Founders & builders

Building AI products & startups who want the cultural context and the hard questions, not just the next changelog.

Startups · Product · Engineering
R

Researchers

Exploring AI & culture — operators and thinkers who need judgement and perspective more than another hype cycle.

Research · Academia · Policy
C

Creative directors & strategists

Working with generative AI — designers, directors and strategists navigating craft and authorship when generation is effectively free.

Studios · Agencies · Independents
Past delegates
24% CMO + marketing directors
17% Founders + Builders
35% Senior creatives, strategists and agency leaders
81% Decision-makers in the room
Previous attendees

Meet the people leading AI adoption

— The lineup

Hear from leaders, creatives and technologists working through AI’s possibilities, limitations and consequences. Their learnings, Their definitions of value. What they protect and what they automate.

Bring your questions to the people building the technology, applying it in business and examining its impact on our lives.

Lucinda Barlow

Lucinda Barlow

Head of International Marketing, Uber

Speaker
Robin Forbes

Robin Forbes

Global CEO, R/GA

Speaker
Tea Uglow

Tea Uglow

CMO and AI consultant

Advisory panel
Kate Westgate

Kate Westgate

Head of Marketing for Home Care, Unilever ANZ

Speaker
See the full lineup → + 36 more being announced

Our partners.

— Partners
Content Partner R/GA
Ecosystem Partner Stone & Chalk
Media Partner B&T
Networking Partner Obsessd
Photography and Videography Partner Centre House
Supporting associations
Supporters
▶ The flagship event

humAIn
2027

21 Oct
SydneyCBD · AUSTRALIA
40+ voicesBUILDERS & LEADERS
250+ delegatesSENIOR MARKETERS, TECHNOLOGISTS & CREATIVES

Case studies, talks, debate: thinking out loud and building in public; connecting the people making AI with the people making meaning with it.

The big questions.

03 — The themes
↗
Theme 01

AI & Creative Work

How AI is changing who makes creative work, how it gets made, and what it is worth.

AI is altering the economics of agencies, production and in-house teams. Workflows, roles, costs and the relationship between time, output and value are all moving at once. What gets automated, and who takes the benefit when production gets faster and cheaper? And if AI does the work juniors used to do, who becomes senior?

Covers the future of marketing teams and roles, the changing CMO, the skills the industry needs by 2030, and the talent pipeline.

↗
Theme 02

Brand Discovery in the AI Age

What happens to visibility and customer choice when machines sit between brands and people?

Search, shopping and recommendation now run through AI. Consumers ask an LLM what to buy, or hand the decision to an agent. What makes a brand more likely to be surfaced, recommended or chosen by a machine? And how does marketing change when the machine is the first thing the customer meets?

Covers AI search, brand visibility, agentic commerce and what it takes to grow a brand today.

↗
Theme 03

The Taste Gap

As the cost of making falls, the value of knowing what's worth making rises.

AI generates competent work at extraordinary scale. The harder problem is choosing: what is distinctive, what deserves attention, what should be rejected, and what carries a point of view rather than an average. The capability at stake is telling the plausible from the meaningful. We ask whether judgement, craft and intention become the real competitive advantage, and how organisations build them deliberately rather than assuming they survive automation.

Covers taste, creative direction, editorial judgement and how creative capability gets developed.

↗
Theme 04

Culture as Training Data

AI learned from us. Now it shapes what audiences see, and whether they believe any of it.

AI systems are trained on accumulated output, assumptions and bias, and they now sit inside marketing, media and everyday decisions. That makes representation, influence and responsibility hard to separate from performance. Who gets represented when a machine generates at scale, and who is responsible? And the commercial question underneath: how does a brand keep credibility when audiences can no longer assume that what they see, hear or read was made by a person?

Covers bias, representation, provenance, synthetic media, AI influence and the growing backlash.

Thinking out loud.

04 — Media & articles
Tea Uglow: Are we building a future we actually want?
From the humAIn stage

Tea Uglow: Are we building a future we actually want?

by the humAIn desk
No winning square: the brand risk of AI agents and trust
Essay - brand trust in the AI era

No winning square: the brand risk of AI agents and trust

by Shane Duggan
AI celebrity Bruce Ryder and The Lost Futures collaborate on interactive experience for humAIn 2026
News

AI celebrity Bruce Ryder and The Lost Futures collaborate on interactive experience for humAIn 2026

by the humAIn desk
Browse all media →

What people leave with.

07 — Testimonials
“

humAIn is where builders go to share what they're actually doing and hearing. Less theatre, more honesty. Less AI hype, more people making things, testing things, and being generous about what's working and what isn't.

It will always mean a lot to us — humAIn was the first stage for Springboards, and helped us launch into the world.

PB
Pip BingemannCo-Founder & CEO, Springboards
“humAIn is one of those rare events where you know you will always bring home a new type of knowledge.”
MM
Marko MarkovicFounder, AdFixus
“I find that when I go to a conference, there is usually one session if I'm lucky that inspires. At humAIn, every session was current, relevant and informative. Congrats on curating such great content — I went back to work with lots of ideas to share.”
CH
Carolyn HyamsMarketing Director, Aquent
“I learnt a lot from others in the media and marketing ecosystem who are applying AI in very smart ways. humAIn is a really lovely community of practice at the heart of AI in comms — people are very generous with their knowledge.”
SK
Samara KitchenerFounder & MD, House of Kitch
“humAIn brings together all the leaders in AI in media and marketing — be there if you want to be part of creating the future of the industry!”
RD
Ross DawsonChairman, Advanced Human Technologies Group
“AI is quietly rewriting the relationships between agencies, platforms, publishers and brands. humAIn matters because it brings those voices together around the same table — to share what we're learning in real time and design better futures for the industry instead of having change done to us.”
KP
Karen PowellFounder & CEO, Omnipresence
“HumAIn is a must-attend event for any future-focused brand leader, opening up our blind spots around AI adoption to unveil powerful competitive opportunities that you can take back to your business.”
CC
Cara CunninghamCEO, Campaign Trail
“It was a pleasure to be part of humAIn 2026 as both a delegate and workshop speaker. The content was thoughtfully curated and the collective energy in the room was something special. A community genuinely committed to forging pathways for AI integration, governance and balance, while keeping creativity at the heart of our industry.”
AV
Ashlea VallanceFounder, Screen Swap by The Screenery
“humAIn provides the industry with an opportunity to go beyond the hype and the headlines and really consider and share the issues and impact AI and technology generally is having on the industry.”
DW
Darren WoolleyGlobal CEO, TrinityP3
“Incredible insights and something to takeaway from all the speakers and panel sessions, the day gave me a clearer idea of how AI plays a role in personal and work life.”
SK
Stuart KeithManaging Director, Extrablack
“Practical tools, knowledge, resources that you can take back and apply to your own business. stay on top of current AI trends and usage”
A
Anonymous
“High calibre speakers covering a diverse range of the latest research and current examples of how AI is affecting our industry.”
A
Anonymous

Get in touch.

— Contact

Whether you'd like to speak, join our advisory panel, partner with us, or simply stay in the loop — we'd love to hear from you.

The community.

08 — Community
Members' area · Coming 2026

A year-round home for the humAIn community.

The conference is two days. The conversation continues. We're building a members' area — a place to keep sharing what's working, what isn't and what's next, in between events.

Year-round sessionsMember directoryWorking groupsRecordings vault
Register interest → Details to be confirmed
Coming soon

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not the noise.

One considered email a fortnight on what AI is doing to creativity, brands and work — and what it can't touch.