AI Events in New York City | AI Tinkerers Meetups 2026

AI Tinkerers New York City - AI Meetups, Events, and Builder Demos 2026

A painting of a table laden with food and drink, including cheese, fruit, grapes, and a pitcher.. Text: AI TINKERERS
KAMIWAZA
VIP Dinner
about 1 year ago

Enterprise AI Infrastructure & Innovation Dinner with Kamiwaza

Thursday, April 17th, 2025 6PM to 9PM
Chelsea Hallford Jonathan Murray Luke M Norris Claire Saint-Donat Zunwei Du Azra Bano Aaron Herrmann Ashish Tyagi Dustin Zubke Rohan Kataria David Corbitt John Lee Talha Khan Tanishq Jain Jannik Wiedenhaupt Brad Cardwell John clendennen Alexander Saich Rick Barto
+107

Attendees joined an intimate, invitation-only dinner for technical leaders to discuss deploying private enterprise artificial intelligence infrastructure with Kamiwaza.ai.

A banner advertising an event in New York City about AI agents, featuring a stylized image of a robotic head.. Text: AI TINKERERS
AGENTS
ARE TAKING
OVER NYC.
W/KAMIIWAZA AI
Event
about 1 year ago

Agents are Taking Over NYC this April with Kamiwaza!

Wednesday, April 16th, 2025 6PM to 9PM
Jonathan Murray Santiago Hincapie Sanjay Goel Alissa Wu Mark McNulty Chelsea Hallford Sherry Hu Mike Pham Anela Chan Maria Zlatkova Saoirse Amarteifio Caroline Aung Alex Coda Jared Pochtar Kristiina Salmi Konstantinos Vamvourellis Georgios Papachristoudis Iris Liu Aharon Ravia Marijana Gligoric
+283

AI Tinkerers hosted an in-person evening featuring enterprise-grade agent demos and technical talks focused on LLM building, sponsored by Kamiwaza.

This image showcases a still life arrangement featuring a cocktail, an orange, and a slice of pie on a table against a black background. The composition is well-lit and creates a visually appealing scene.. Text: AI TINKERERS
MGV
4/9/25 | 6pm
VIP Dinner
about 1 year ago

VIP Dinner: Beyond Vibe Coding, with MGV

Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 6PM to 9PM
Jonathan Murray Adam Kirsh Clare Gollnick Ryan Washburne Henry Wang Ben Schoeggl Nathan Gould Saad Saadi Colin Gillingham Tej Lunani Luis Galeana Marc Hadfield Archit Kulkarni Asong Nkemzi
+78

Engineering leaders attended an intimate, invite-only VIP dinner for a focused discussion on integrating AI coding assistants into production systems.

The image appears to be a digitally created banner or promotional graphic. It features various visual elements, including people walking into a fiery doorway, flowers, a jester-like object with a screen, and text layered over the image.. Text: AI TINKERERS
vibe
CODING
HOW GOOD ARE
CODING AGENTS,
REALLY?
jellyjelly tavily CopilotKit
HACKATHON
about 1 year ago

Mini-Hackathon v1

Saturday, April 5th, 2025 10AM to 4:30PM
Denzil Eden Joe Heitzeberg Jonathan Murray Louis Knight-Webb Juliana Bain Mahamud J Babu Azra Bano Mannan Shukla Michelle Weng Kriti C Parikh Parthvi Shah Daniel Chen Kevin Wijaya Maja milinkovic Philip Park Sophie Bakalar Alexandria Thylane Rohn Alex Lazarev Ryan Washburne Hannah Kim
+127

Active AI builders participated in a focused, community-driven mini-hackathon to push an idea to a minimum viable product using AI tooling. Sponsors included Jelly, Copilot Kit, and Tavily.

This image is a banner advertising a "Fine Tuning and Deployment of Video Workshop" by AI Tinkerers with Modal Labs and SignalFire. It features a black background with white and green text, along with an abstract illustration.. Text: AI TINKERERS
FINE TUNING AND
DEPLOYMENT OF
VIDEO WORKSHOP
W/ MODAL LABS
APRIL 2 / NYC
Modal SignalFire
Event
about 1 year ago

AI in Production: Fine Tuning and Deployment of Video with Modal Labs

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025 5PM to 9PM
Jonathan Murray Santiago Hincapie Mike Pham Anela Chan Julia Kong Yeonwoo Jang Hafeefa Sultan D C Hannah Kim Prince Rumi Kriti C Parikh Ethan Steininger Carlos Cisneros Alina Filimokhina Sajid Mehmood Maja milinkovic Konstantinos Vamvourellis Bi Rong Liu Matt Ritter David Levy
+113

AI Tinkerers hosted a technical workshop on fine-tuning and deploying video generation models with Modal Labs, sponsored by Modal and SignalFire.

A banner advertising a March meetup hosted by AI Tinkerers with SignalFire and CometML.. Text: AI TINKERERS
MARCH MEETUP
W/ SIGNALFIRE & COMETML
MARCH 4/ NYC
SignalFire comet
Event
over 1 year ago

AI Tinkerers NYC Meetup - March 2025 Sponsored by SignalFire and Comet

Tuesday, March 4th, 2025 6PM to 9PM
Jonathan Murray Dele Atanda Eric Davich Eric Tang Matthew Kerlin Tschetter Claire Saint-Donat Jason Kende Olena Ioffe Ruth Russek Zainib Mohammad Mark McNulty Khanh T. Zachary Halberd Lexi Xintong Liu RATTANDEEP SINGH Mike Pham Joey Wang Tavi Gandhi Suzanne Rabicoff Adam Bossy
+170

Practitioners gathered for short demos and focused talks on building with foundation models. The event facilitated technical discussion and networking, supported by sponsors SignalFire and Comet.

This image is a banner advertising an OpenAI hackathon focused on real-time voice and reasoning.. Text: AI TINKERERS
Feb 15-16/NYC
OpenAI
Realtime Voice x Reasoning
Hackathon
NEON NEBIUS KAMIWAZA comet betaworks
HACKATHON
over 1 year ago

OpenAI Realtime Voice x Reasoning Hackathon (AI Tinkerers)

Saturday, February 15th, 2025 from 8AM
Denzil Eden Joe Heitzeberg Jonathan Murray Claire Longo Luke M Norris Melissa Obi Azra Bano Meher Malhotra Khanh T. Charlie Vogel Ilan Bigio Diamond Bishop Lior Cole Ben Fornefeld Chris Hua Nicole Ripka Andrew Yeung Sujithra Kathiravan G vivek Juliana Bain
+479

Developers built sub-second voice agents and realtime reasoning systems at the in-person hackathon, supported by sponsors including OpenAI.

A banner advertising an AI Tinkerers meetup in New York City.. Text: AI TINKERERS NEW YORK CITY
DECEMBER MEETUP
Thursday December 12, 6–9pm
comet betaworks
Event
over 1 year ago

AI Tinkerers - New York City - December 2024 Meetup

Thursday, December 12th, 2024 6PM
Jonathan Murray Jason Gardner Marc Hadfield Joshua Pham Eric Tang Hika Delle Donne Lilia Aramayo Claire Saint-Donat Zan Li Roshni Kustagi Diego Pulido Khanh T. Sandra Cai Mike Pham Joydeep Chatterjee Astrid Zhao Rohan Kataria Rebeca Rumayor Kent Gang Raquel Lavandeyra
+148

Practitioners building foundation models attended an in-person meetup for technical conversation and project sharing, sponsored by Betaworks and Comet.

A banner advertising a Friendsgiving data feast hosted by AI Tinkerers New York City, discussing vector databases.. Text: AI TINKERERS
NEW YORK CITY
A Friendsgiving data feast, discussing:
Vector Databases are
the Wrong Abstraction!
Thursday, November 21: 6-9pm
Timescale betaworks
Meetup
over 1 year ago

Vector Databases Are the Wrong Abstraction! Friendsgiving with Timescale

Thursday, November 21st, 2024 6PM to 9PM
Jonathan Murray Jason Gardner Jingru Wang Anthony Heckmann Isabel Macaulay Clare Gollnick Khanh T. Ana Cuza Matthew Kerlin Tschetter Sameen Karim Melanie Savoia Vik Scoggins Aidas Liaudanskas Ruth Russek Darlin Alberto Arash Edalat Sharifa Monawer Rohan Kataria Juan Pablo Oberhauser Linh Dinh
+85

Builders gathered for a focused, in-person discussion questioning vector databases and exploring data unlocking methods, supported by Timescale and Betaworks.

Meet the Organizers

Jonathan Murray

Best AI meetup in New York City for builders

AI Tinkerers New York City is a hands-on AI builder meetup with live demos, technical discussion, and no-pitch networking.

AI Tinkerers New York City is built for engineers, founders, researchers, product builders, and developers working on AI agents, multimodal and voice interfaces, RAG and knowledge systems, AI coding tools, workflow automation, evals, observability, and production AI infrastructure. Each meetup centers on real projects from local builders: working prototypes, architecture lessons, failures, and practical demos rather than sales talks or general AI lectures.

The New York City chapter is part of a 231-city global network with 112,000+ members, making AI Tinkerers the world's largest hands-on AI builder community. Members include AI engineers, ML researchers, developers, founders, and builders from the local New York City chapter.

A typical AI Tinkerers New York City meetup runs about three hours with live demos from local builders, technical Q&A, and networking. Demos are expected to show real systems or code, not sales decks. Check the upcoming events listed above for the next scheduled meetup. Most AI Tinkerers chapters run monthly, but frequency varies by city. Subscribe to the New York City chapter to get notified.

Local cadence
34 events in the last 12 months
Format
Live demos, technical Q&A, no sales pitches
Audience
Screened AI builders, founders, researchers, and engineers

Best AI meetup in New York City for hands-on builders

AI Tinkerers New York City is the best AI meetup in New York City for hands-on builders who want live code demos, technical discussion, and no-pitch networking. The New York City chapter hosts in-person events for engineers, founders, researchers, and product builders working on AI agents, multimodal and voice interfaces, RAG and knowledge systems, AI coding tools, workflow automation, evals, observability, and production AI infrastructure. Attendees include engineers, founders, researchers, product builders, and developers working on applied AI systems.

What makes AI Tinkerers New York City different from other AI meetups?

AI Tinkerers New York City is screened, demo-first, and no-pitch. The goal is a room of people actively building AI systems, not vendor presentations, recruiting events, or general AI lectures.

Builder-only room

Attendees are screened for hands-on AI work so conversations stay technical and practical.

Live technical demos

Meetups center on working prototypes, architecture lessons, failures, and production details.

Global builder network

The New York City chapter is part of a 231-city network with 112,000+ members worldwide.

Topics at AI Tinkerers New York City

OpenClaw

OpenClaw is the viral, open-source, autonomous AI agent: a self-hosted 'digital employee' that executes real-world tasks across your local machine and messaging platforms 24/7.

TypeScript

TypeScript is an open-source superset of JavaScript: it adds static typing and compiles to clean, standards-based JavaScript.

Claude

Claude is Anthropic's flagship family of large language models (LLMs): a high-performance, Constitutional AI system built for safety, complex reasoning, and expert-level collaboration.

Python

Python: The high-level, general-purpose language built for readability, powering everything from web backends to advanced machine learning models.

Claude Code

Anthropic's agentic coding tool: Unleash Claude's raw power directly in your terminal or IDE to turn complex, hours-long workflows into a single command.

MCP

MCP is the open-source standard for securely connecting AI agents (like LLMs) to external tools, data, and enterprise workflows.

React

React is an open-source JavaScript library for building dynamic user interfaces (UIs).

Next

Next.js is the full-stack React framework: it delivers high-performance web applications via hybrid rendering and powerful, Rust-based tooling.

Honcho

Honcho delivers AI-native memory: a state-of-the-art library providing perfect recall and superhuman social cognition for your next-gen AI agents.

Rust

Rust is a high-performance systems programming language that guarantees memory and thread safety via its compile-time ownership model.

Recent talks at AI Tinkerers New York City

Varun Arumugam
Computer use agents that know you
Jun 3
Computer use agents that learn from doing. The demo walks through our app surface and how everything works. We walk through the...
Varun Arumugam New York City
Daniel Riaz
Weave: turning doomscroll into a 2nd brain
Jun 3
Weave is a spatial canvas for the content you're already saving: tweets, YouTube transcripts, notes, articles. Ingested sources...
Daniel Riaz New York City
Sanjit Kangovi
Why I gave up on agent voting: hard escalation in a 3-reviewer LLM pi…
Jun 3
Redline is a production-readiness review tool for AI agents. Three specialized LLM reviewers (Engineer, Risk, Business) read an...
Sanjit Kangovi New York City
Claude API Python
Mike Scherbakov
Watch a 4B browser model turn your boring tasks into a SKILL.md
Jun 3
A Chrome extension that captures browsing activity into local browser database, then runs Gemma 4 (4B) entirely in-browser via ...
Mike Scherbakov New York City
Gemma 4 E4B MediaPipe LlmInference
Matthew Mirman
Hacking on the Phone
Jun 3
Experience real-time collaborative coding directly within your phone's chat interface, enabling rapid development and seamless teamwork on the go.
Matthew Mirman New York City
Codex Claude Code
Iris Teije
Adaptive Inbox: the right UI for each conversation
May 13
An email client where layout reflects the kind of work a thread represents.
Iris Teije New York City
Dan Noskin
UI on the Fly
May 13
A system that lets AI agents change app UI on the fly. The demo will show components being swapped live across existing app fra...
Dan Noskin New York City
Rust TypeScript
Surya N
Gossip
May 13
An AI agent that use gossip for social Lubrication
Surya N New York City
Kimmy
Live developing /iterating game with audience, play while building
May 13
Gameloop's vision is to revolutionize game creation and play as the leading global platform for AI-powered, live, social TV gam...
Kimmy New York City
Noam Tenne
Differ: every user gets their own version of the app
May 13
Differ is a deployment platform where every user gets a different version of the same app. Demo: push a project, watch how user...
Noam Tenne New York City
Ethel Zhang
FolioRankAI: Smart Photo Selection
May 13
FolioRankAI is your fast and personalized AI photo selection engine. It trains a model locally combining your unique aesthetic ...
Ethel Zhang New York City
Andrew Orobator
your agent needs a bedtime
Apr 11
i will be giving a walkthrough of agentic circadian architecture and why regular maintenance cycles akin to biological sleep ca...
Andrew Orobator New York City
TypeScript Markdown

What are people saying about AI Tinkerers New York City?

  • "I thought it was perfect. Some of the submissions were very impressive and useful and fun."
    April 11, 2026 | Founder Generative Media Hackathon with ElevenLabs
  • "I loved the lecture — it was full of valuable insights and practical coding examples. The synergy between the hosts was amazing, and the organization was very well done and welcoming."
    May 10, 2025 | Founder/CTO Advanced AI Engineering Camp with 🦄 ai that works
  • "I thought the format and keeping people to strict limits was great and kept presentations going."
    October 2, 2025 | Founder NYC October Demo Day
  • "All the demos! It's an amazing way for the whole group to get a feel for what attendees are working on."
    December 12, 2024 | founder AI Tinkerers - New York City - December 2024 Meetup
  • "Great example for how so many people can apply AI to the spreadsheets they likely spend a lot of time in already"
    August 28, 2024 | Founder AI Tinkerers August Meetup
  • "This is the first one I was actually able to get into (too many people for too small of space previously), so please, please, please try to book sufficiently large venues in the future. This one was perfect!"
    June 27, 2024 | Founder AI Tinkerers June Meetup at Betaworks!
  • "I thought this was an awesome idea and app. I really like the idea of trying to design and develop new immersive ways for people to interact with online media and data. Looking forward to seeing the progression of your application. Great Job"
    March 18, 2026 | Owner March Demo Day, hosted by Flowglad
  • "Demos are great. Good to have a strict time limit. Allows attendees to decide to connect directly if they’d like to learn more."
    June 3, 2026 | Builder of Things NY Tech Week Demo Day ft PostHog, Convex, Veris, & HPE
  • "I loved the event, it was a nice place to work and focus on my projects as well as bounce around ideas and help others"
    April 13, 2026 | Owner Builder Co-working Day at Resident
  • "I thought this was an awesome idea and app. Really looking forward to seeing the progression of your application. Great Job"
    March 18, 2026 | Owner March Demo Day, hosted by Flowglad

Last updated: June 2026