A two-day multi-track conference in Budapest on 1-2 October 2026, produced by CraftHub Events. Organised around five integrated tracks spanning AI/ML, UX/UI, Data, Product, and Leadership, the event targets practitioners who build AI-era products across engineering and design disciplines. Attendance is self-reported at 1,300.
Compass AI & Tech Summit is a multi-track conference produced by CraftHub Events, the Budapest-based company also responsible for Craft Conference, a developer-focused event that has been held in Budapest since the early 2010s. Compass is positioned as a product-building conference: it addresses the full cross-functional team that brings a digital product to market, from AI/ML engineers and data engineers to product managers, UX designers, and engineering leaders.
The organiser's stated theme for 2026 is "From idea to impact: building successful products in the AI era." The programme covers five tracks: AI/ML, UX/UI, Data, Product, and Leadership. The multi-track format is unusual in the Central European conference market, where single-discipline events are more common.
The exact venue in Budapest had not been disclosed publicly on the official website at time of verification (2026-06-09).
The Compass AI & Tech Summit 2026 takes place on 1-2 October 2026 in Budapest. The two-day format includes keynotes, multi-track sessions, workshops (described as masterclasses), and networking programming.
Confirmed keynote speaker for 2026: Nesrine Changuel (Product Trainer; author of "Product Delight"; formerly Google, Spotify, Skype), speaking on product excellence.
Confirmed featured speakers include practitioners from: Wise (Gergő Horányi, Product Lead), Zalando (Jarno Koponen, Head of AI Product Design), HubSpot (Jonathon Colman, Senior Content Design Manager), Adobe (Dr. Laura Herman, Head of AI Research), Diligent (Chris Avore, VP Design), ESL FACEIT Group (Julia Bodnar, VP Data & Privacy), Oxford Internet Institute (Katherine M. Zhou, Designer and PhD Candidate), and others.
Sponsors confirmed for 2026 include Bosch (Platinum) and Wise and SAP (Gold).
The number of sessions, masterclasses per day, and full programme schedule were not yet published on the official website at time of verification.
Compass occupies a gap in the Central European autumn tech calendar between the summer break and Q4 enterprise conference season. Budapest is CraftHub Events' home market, and Craft Conference has previously established it as a credible location for senior practitioner events in the CEE region.
By spanning five tracks rather than focusing on a single discipline, Compass targets cross-functional product teams rather than specialist single-role communities. This positions it differently from purely developer-focused or purely UX-focused regional conferences.
Based on the organiser's stated audience and speaker profiles:
The event explicitly addresses multi-disciplinary product teams rather than any single engineering specialisation. Attendee testimonials cited on the organiser website include data engineers, UX/UI designers, staff data engineers, engineering managers, DevOps engineers, and students.
The geographic draw appears primarily Central and Eastern European, with speakers from Western European companies (Netherlands, Germany, UK, Finland).
Specific session counts, workshop schedule, and networking programme details were not published at time of verification.
Based on the five stated tracks and confirmed speaker topics:
Craft Conference is CraftHub Events' longer-standing developer-focused conference, also held in Budapest. Compass AI & Tech Summit covers a wider cross-disciplinary scope, adding UX, Product, Data, and Leadership tracks to technical engineering content. The two events are separate.
The exact venue in Budapest was not disclosed on the official website at time of verification (2026-06-09). The organiser has a dedicated location page at https://compassaitechsummit.com/location/ which should be consulted for updated venue information closer to the event.
CraftHub Events is the Budapest-based organisation behind both Craft Conference and Compass AI & Tech Summit. Craft Conference is a developer-focused event that has positioned Budapest as a destination for senior engineering practitioners in Central Europe. CraftHub's event model emphasises practitioner speakers ("from practitioners to practitioners" is the stated principle), workshop formats, and senior-level networking.
The organiser website is at https://compassaitechsummit.com. Social channels include LinkedIn (company page for the Global Software Architecture Summit brand), Instagram (@plainconcepts is not the correct reference for this event), and X/Twitter.
CraftHub Events applies to AI the same cross-disciplinary format that made Craft Conference a reference point in the Central European developer calendar: senior speakers, integrated tracks, no single-stack silo.
Ticket registration is available at https://compassaitechsummit.com/tickets/. Specific ticket pricing was not retrieved at time of verification. The organiser offered an early access list for discounted tickets via the website.
Sponsoring information is available at https://compassaitechsummit.com/sponsors-partners/.
Based on the speaker roster and organiser communications, sessions are conducted in English. This is not explicitly confirmed on the FAQ page.
Yes. Published at https://compassaitechsummit.com/code-of-conduct/.
The organiser's location page is at https://compassaitechsummit.com/location/. The exact venue had not been disclosed at time of verification (2026-06-09).
| Official website | https://compassaitechsummit.com/ |
| Tickets | https://compassaitechsummit.com/tickets/ |
| Speakers | https://compassaitechsummit.com/speakers/ |
| Location | https://compassaitechsummit.com/location/ |
| Sponsors | https://compassaitechsummit.com/sponsors-partners/ |
| FAQ | https://compassaitechsummit.com/faq/ |
| Code of conduct | https://compassaitechsummit.com/code-of-conduct/ |