Frontrunners AI Conference

Frontrunners AI and Data Conference

Frontrunners is an annual software developers conference from the Washington, DC area. This year Frontrunners will be held on March 27, 2026 and will feature AI!

We Need Volunteers!

Help us out! The Frontrunners AI developers conference needs some volunteers! Most of the jobs are pretty simple and do not require actually missing any of the conference. So, no worries! You would be just a regular attendee who has a responsibility.

Volunteer Here!

Tickets!

Frontrunners 2026 General Admission tickets are available now (current price through at least 3/13).

Frontrunners Conference
Frontrunners Conference
Frontrunners Conference

Our Venue

Frontrunners 2026 will be held at Van Metre Hall at GMU's Arlington Campus, a fantastic facility for both speakers and attendees.

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Sponsors

For sponsorship information visit our sponsorship page, or email us at info at frontrunners dot tech.

2026 Speakers

Neil Chaudhuri

The Promise and Peril of Model Context Protocol

Danielle Maxwell

Stop Guessing, Start Testing: A Practical Framework for Evaluating LLMs and Prompts

Steve Drucker

Codepocalypse Now: Stop Worrying and Embrace Agentic AI Development

Chrissy Ching Mott

From Hype to Impact: How AI Is Reshaping the Way We Hire Technical Talent

Mark DeRosa

Data Quality is a Journey, not a Destination

Jofia Jose Prakash

Tiered AI Architectures: Cut Cost, Latency, and Brittleness Without Losing Quality

Hirenkumar Dholariya

AI Modernization for Regulated Data Using Semantic Intelligence

Jeremy Curcio

Engineering Better Prompts for AI Assisted Development

Courtney Yatteau

AI-Powered Gamification for the Web

Craig Wong

Lessons from a Three-Week AI-Assisted Refactor with Amazon Q Developer

Kapil Poreddy

Building a Real-Time LLM Classification Pipeline for Under $0.001 Per Request

Sandhya Subramani

My AI Just Upgraded Itself

NOTE: We are still confirming and announcing speakers. Our speaker list is subject to change.

2026 Schedule

8:30 AM
Registration
9:30 AM
Welcome
9:40 AM
Danielle Maxwell — Room 126 — Stop Guessing, Start Testing: A Practical Framework for Evaluating LLMs and Prompts
10:30 AM
Courtney Yatteau — Room 126 — AI-Powered Gamification for the Web
Jofia Jose Prakash — Room 125 — Tiered AI Architectures: Cut Cost, Latency, and Brittleness Without Losing Quality
11:20 AM
Kapil Poreddy — Room 126 — Building a Real-Time LLM Classification Pipeline for Under $0.001 Per Request
12:00 PM
Lunch Break
1:20 PM
Chrissy Ching Mott — Room 126 — From Hype to Impact: How AI Is Reshaping the Way We Hire Technical Talent
Steve Drucker — Room 125 — Codepocalypse Now: Stop Worrying and Embrace Agentic AI Development
2:10 PM
Neil Chaudhuri — Room 126 — The Promise and Peril of Model Context Protocol
Jeremy Curcio — Room 125 — Engineering Better Prompts for AI Assisted Development
2:40 PM
Snack Break
3:10 PM
Sandhya Subramani — Room 126 — My AI Just Upgraded Itself
Mark DeRosa — Room 125 — Data Quality is a Journey, not a Destination
4:00 PM
Craig Wong — Room 126 — Lessons from a Three-Week AI-Assisted Refactor with Amazon Q Developer
Hirenkumar Dholariya — Room 125 — AI Modernization for Regulated Data Using Semantic Intelligence
5:00 PM
Happy Hour at Spider Kelly's bar!
3181 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201