COLLIDE Data + AI Conference 2026: Dates, Speakers, Passes & Full Guide (Atlanta, Oct 1)
October 1, 2026
COLLIDE Data + AI Conference 2026 runs Thursday, October 1, 2026 at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center outside Atlanta, from 9 a. m.
COLLIDE Data + AI Conference 2026 runs Thursday, October 1, 2026 at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center outside Atlanta, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Data Science Connect gathers 20-plus VP and director-level data and AI leaders from Fortune 500 companies including Coca-Cola, AT&T, Truist, and Televisa Univision. All-access is $499 early bird, and qualified non-vendor enterprise leaders (250+ employees, senior role) get in free.
Why I track COLLIDE for the StackVerdict tool desk
I track enterprise data and AI conferences the same way I track AI tool deals, because the governance patterns Fortune 500 teams argue about on stage become the compliance backdrop for the SaaS and AI tools I test 6 to 12 months later. COLLIDE 2026 is one of the tighter signals in that calendar. Not a demo day. Not a hackathon. One day. Senior data and AI decision-makers. Governance-heavy agenda. If you sell into enterprise AI buyers, or you are one, the room is the product.
COLLIDE 2026 quick facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Date | Thursday, October 1, 2026 (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) |
| Venue | Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center, Georgia |
| Format | In-person only, single day |
| Organizer | Data Science Connect |
| 2026 theme | AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production |
| Featured speakers | 20+ named, more added closer to date |
| All-access pass | $499 early bird (regular $999) |
| Free enterprise pass | Non-vendor, 250+ employees, senior role |
| Website | datasciconnect.com/events/collide |
All rows verified from the official site (checked 2026-08-24, datasciconnect.com/events/collide).
The 2026 theme is production, not pilots
COLLIDE’s 2026 theme is “AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production,” and the agenda maps to it more honestly than most conference themes do. Every large-organization AI conversation I have run into in 2026 sits in the same gap: models are easy, moving them into reliable production is not. McKinsey’s State of AI work has shown the same thing across multiple years. COLLIDE builds the entire day around that gap.
The program organizes around four content pillars, and each maps to a real enterprise problem:
- AI as a system. Evaluation, observability, LLMOps, GenAIOps, context engineering beyond classic RAG, and treating agents as systems rather than features.
- Governance that runs at runtime, not on a policy deck. Risk, security, model accountability, privacy, sovereignty, audit readiness, and human oversight of autonomous agents.
- The economics of AI as a portfolio decision: FinOps for AI, ROI measurement, use case prioritization, and cost governance for the CFO conversation.
- Enterprise foundations. AI-ready data, semantic consistency, the merge of data and AI governance, and the operating model changes that make AI stick past a pilot.
The breadth is deliberate. Enterprise AI touches engineering, data, security, legal, and finance, and a real program has to hit all of them.
The 2026 speaker lineup skews senior and governance-heavy
Twenty-plus named speakers, all VP, SVP, and director-level operators. Sergey Fogelson (VP, Head of Data Science, Televisa Univision), Anqi Zou (SVP, Head of Fair and Responsible Banking Analytics, Truist), Ricardo Gonzalez (Director, Data Governance Platforms, Coca-Cola), and Ram Kumar (Sr. Director, Networks, Automation and Analytics, AT&T) lead the roster. The rest reads similar: engineering leaders in Gen AI and ML, data and AI architecture GMs, governance and quality oversight VPs, data privacy directors, MDM and data fabric leaders.
Read the title pattern before the names. Governance, fair and responsible AI, privacy, and quality oversight roles sit right next to the engineering and data science leaders. That is what COLLIDE 2026 actually cares about. Building AI responsibly at scale is the pitch. Everything on the agenda is downstream of it.
Pricing gives enterprise buyers a free door and vendors a $499 one
| Pass | Price | Who it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| All-Access (in-person) | $499 early bird (regular $999) | Anyone who wants guaranteed access without an application |
| Complimentary (in-person) | Free ($999 value) | Qualified non-vendor enterprise leaders, application-only |
| Media | Free | Journalists, influencers, and media, application-only |
Pricing checked 2026-08-24 on datasciconnect.com/events/collide. A “Summer Saver” rate of $599 surfaced on the official site in July 2026; confirm the live number before you register.
The free pass is doing real work. To qualify you need all three: your company is not a vendor with sales interest in data or AI end-users, your organization has 250 or more employees, and you hold a senior executive or technical role. That vendor exclusion keeps the buyer-to-seller ratio pointed at the buyers. If you meet the criteria, apply first and buy nothing. The $499 all-access pass includes every session, the exhibit hall, breakfasts, lunches, networking receptions, and a private meeting app.
You are on the hook for airfare and one or two hotel nights. Because COLLIDE is one day, Southeast attendees drive in and skip the hotel entirely.
Data Science Connect’s 2026 circuit is bigger than COLLIDE
COLLIDE is the Atlanta flagship, but Data Science Connect also runs the ALIGN AI Executive Summits across Atlanta, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas, plus an AI Enterprise Conference in New York on September 1. ALIGN is smaller, more executive-roundtable in format. AI Enterprise NY skews finance. If COLLIDE’s date does not fit, one of the ALIGN summits or the NY event might be the substitute. Presenting sponsors for COLLIDE 2026 are IBM, Actian, NexusOne, and Google Cloud, with Informatica, Alteryx, and LangChain on the higher tiers.
Who should attend and who should skip
You should go if you own a data or AI function at a large enterprise, need a concentrated day of peer benchmarking on production and governance, and want to compare IBM, Google Cloud, Informatica, Alteryx, and LangChain in one afternoon. If you qualify for the free pass, book the flight. If you are paying $499, the math still works for one day.
You should skip it if you want hands-on technical training. COLLIDE is a strategy, governance, and networking event, not a workshop that hands you new code. Individual contributors, solo founders, and early-career analysts will get more mileage from the best AI tools coverage I already publish than from a Fortune 500 networking pass.
Check the free-pass criteria today, apply before the limited allocation fills, and if you do not qualify, lock the $499 rate before it climbs back to $999. If COLLIDE does not fit and you want the invite-only executive version, the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC at City Winery NYC runs June 25.