Barcelona AI Summit: Beyond Theory into Action
The AI industry is saturated with “commercial fluff” – vague sales pitches and corporate visions that offer little for the Monday morning following a conference. To address this, 22-year-old Adam Hruska is scaling the AI Summit Barcelona into Spain’s largest AI event, targeting 10,000 attendees with a strict “Beyond Theory” mandate.
Our conversation dives into the mechanics of this shift: replacing traditional sales booths with live demos, 16 practical workshops, and a custom AI-powered app designed to filter industry noise into a personalized path for every attendee. This discussion matters because as automation reshapes the global labor market, professionals and Gen Z graduates are facing a “dark spot” of uncertainty. They are seeking structured clarity over hype to ensure their skills remain relevant in an economy where the “Future of Work” is no longer a theory, but an immediate challenge.
Watch the full interview here.
Adam Hruska
Co-Founder of AI Summit Barcelona
Adam, your journey into the world of AI events is fascinating. You are only 22, and you’ve built something that is scaling from 1,500 to 10,000 attendees. How did this all begin?
It’s almost hard to believe looking back, but this entire project actually started as a joke. My associate Tanguy Wincker and I, who are both 22, had been running a travel agency for three years, primarily bringing students and companies from France to Barcelona. Last June, our associate Guillaume Rostand, the president of the French Tech, suggested we help out with an AI summit and “make it big”.
Initially, our ambition was quite modest. We were aiming to gather maybe 300 to 400 people for a small event with a few panels and keynotes. But as we looked at other events across Europe, something clicked. We realized we could do something much more impactful. We began reaching out to the biggest voices in the AI sphere, inviting them to Barcelona for what we promised would be the city’s premier AI summit. Our idea resonated far more than we expected. We ended up with almost 1,500 attendees in our first year, and that was the moment I realized we had a very significant business to build. Now, for our second edition, we are on track to host 10,000 people, making us the largest AI event in the country.
Moving from a few hundred people to a crowd of 10,000 is a massive logistical and strategic leap. What lessons did you carry over from that first year to ensure the quality scales with the quantity?
The biggest lesson was the absolute necessity of preparation. Last year, we built the entire event in roughly three months with a tiny team of four or five people. We moved so fast that we missed a lot of details regarding the management of large groups. We didn’t truly place ourselves in the “head of the general attendee” to see where the pain points would be.
This year is different. We now have a team of 15 to 20 people who are constantly adopting that attendee position. Every day, we analyze the event flow to understand what someone might want, or specifically not want, at a tech summit. We are optimizing the entire structure so that the experience is pleasant and productive for everyone. We’ve moved past the stage where we have to chase speakers; we’ve hit a breaking point where we receive so many inbound requests that we have to filter them to ensure only the best content reaches our stages.
You’ve mentioned that you want to move away from the traditional “Congress” model. How are you using the location of Barcelona and the World Trade Center to change the attendee experience?
I truly believe the world doesn’t need another standard AI congress; it needs a model that is interactive and experiential. We are drawing inspiration from events like Slush in Helsinki, which focus on immersive formats that really draw an audience.
“You just say Barcelona and you have already half of the people interested to join.”
Instead of a traditional, sterile congress hall, we chose the World Trade Center of Barcelona, which is situated right next to the sea. This allows us to utilize office spaces, terraces with sea views, and even boats and yachts as part of the summit. We are also privatizing the docks. We want to create an atmosphere that is completely different from what people expect. Even our exhibition area is different – we don’t want salespeople just pitching at you from booths. We want exhibitors to show, not just tell. For instance, HP will be there showcasing how they quantize AI models so they can run locally on computers for the general public. We even have a boxing activation where an AI camera analyzes your movements and ranks you on a leaderboard. We want AI to be fun, tangible, and pleasant for the audience.
Your tagline is “Beyond theory, AI in action.” Beyond the boxing activations and the yachts, how are you ensuring that attendees walk away with practical skills?
We are pushing implementation harder than any other event. We have a dedicated stage for live demos—no slides allowed, just real products being demonstrated in real-time to show how they can be integrated into a company. We are also running 16 workshops over the course of two days. These workshops cover everything from building your own go-to-market agent to enterprise adoption strategies and using AI for personal wellness.
On our main stage, we have a “use case” afternoon where major corporations and their providers showcase exactly how they are implementing AI internally. We want to skip the “corporate vision” speeches and get straight to what is really happening inside these big organizations. Success for me isn’t just about the number of people; it’s about someone leaving the summit knowing exactly what they can do the “day after” to be more efficient.
There is a lot of “noise” in the AI space right now. How do you help a single attendee find what is relevant to them in an event with 10,000 people?
The answer is structure. We have established seven major tracks, including AI for Builders, AI for Tech, AI for Good, AI for Tomorrow, and AI for Growth. Within those, there are roughly 50 sub-tracks. This allows for extreme filtering. If you are an expert in the travel industry, you don’t need to listen to 49 other topics; you can go specifically to the “AI and Travel” sub-track, attend the relevant panel, the specific workshop, and the demo tailored to your field.
We are also using AI to teach people how to use AI. We are launching a custom-built app that asks attendees questions about their interests and goals. Our AI system then builds a personalized program just for them. We know that in 2026, people spend time on their phones at events anyway, so we want to use that time to transmit the right, noise-free information so they can enjoy the event fully.
You’ve spoken about the “dark spot” of AI, the anxiety many feel about the future. As a member of Gen Z, how do you view the “Future of Work”?
This is my personal mission: educating people and moving away from “commercial fluff”. There is a significant fear of missing out (FOMO) and a real uncertainty about what the world will look like in five to ten years. I see people from my own generation who are graduating from prestigious schools but have no idea if the job they studied for will even exist in three years.
“We are on a mission to really showcase what is happening in the AI field, how it will affect the people and what they should do moving forward.”
We need to reassure people by showing them what is realistically possible and what is not. We want our attendees to come with a “learning mindset”, so they can find the synergies and help each other grow in this new revolution. We want to put a light on that dark spot of uncertainty.
What is your final piece of advice for those planning to join us in Barcelona?
Focus on what you want to get from the summit. It is very easy to get lost if you don’t have a goal. Take just 10 or 15 minutes before you arrive to study the agenda, look at the speakers and sponsors, and identify who you want to see. Having a clear view of your objectives will save you hours of wandering and ensure you walk out with the best possible outcome.