AI Expo Europe Program 2026: Speakers and Agenda

The AI Expo Europe program is taking shape two weeks before the opening. The event takes place on November 1 and 2 in Bucharest, with 63 announced sessions, including 44 keynotes or panel discussions and 19 live demos. To prepare this article, Cointribune, the event’s media partner, reviewed the official agenda, the speaker bios and the announcements published on X. The code COINTRIBUNE20 gives you 20% off tickets.

To get the AI Expo Europe x Cointribune partnership discount (20% with the code COINTRIBUNE20), click here.

What does the AI Expo Europe 2026 program include?

The AI Expo Europe program is built around two stages, one for talks and one for live demos. According to the official event agenda, checked on October 18, 2026, the AI Expo Europe program lists 63 sessions. Of these, 44 are keynotes or panel discussions and 19 are live demos. However, the opening keynote on November 1 has yet to be announced.

The topics range from defense and national security to child protection against deepfakes, the AI supply chain and the global AI race. The demos then show concrete use cases, from coding to customer service, in finance, accounting and law. This ties in with AI agents in crypto payments, a topic our editorial team has already covered.

Finally, the AI Excellence Awards take place on the evening of November 1. Only VIP tickets give access to the pre-gala. In addition, the dedicated page is open for nominations in 39 categories.

Who are the speakers announced in Bucharest?

The biggest names come first from the tech industry. Microsoft, Google, Oracle and LinkedIn each give a keynote on November 1. The next day, NVIDIA, Adobe, ING, Alibaba Cloud, IBM, KPMG and Palo Alto Networks take over. ING is also sending Bahadir Yilmaz, the group’s chief data and analytics officer, and Philipp Gamauf, chief financial officer of ING Romania.

The organizer has also announced new names on X. For example, Ana Maria Borlovan, general manager of Uber for Romania and eight other markets, is joining the event. Mihai Filip, founder of OVES Enterprise, brings a defense-tech perspective. Meanwhile, WorldGuard and PPC have signed on as sponsors.

Yet the agenda lists only 68 named speakers, while the organizer announces more than 100. It does not explain the gap, which will probably close before the opening.

What place do crypto and the AI Act have in the AI Expo Europe program?

First, no session title mentions crypto. Several speakers do have a blockchain background, according to the organizer’s bios. As a result, crypto shows up through the people rather than the session titles.

Felix Crisan, co-founder of Netopia and BTKO.in, takes part in two panel discussions on November 2. The organizer describes BTKO.in as the first Romanian crypto exchange, active since 2013. Sebastian Cochinescu speaks on November 1 about cybersecurity, then about AI in healthcare. By contrast, the four lawyers from VD Law Group, including managing partner Sergiu T. Vasilescu, still have no session.

The EU’s AI regulation, the AI Act, also gets its own panel on November 2. Victor Negrescu, Vice-President of the European Parliament, sits alongside Pavel Popescu of ANCOM, the Romanian communications regulator. Tudor Galos, an AI governance consultant, completes the panel. The organizer also announces a stage dedicated to the AI Act, but its content has yet to be published. This framework matters for crypto platforms too when they use AI, for example in customer support or fraud prevention.

For crypto readers, the AI Expo Europe program comes down to four sessions, according to the official agenda:

Date and Time (Bucharest)	Session	Speaker
November 1, 3:10 PM	Cyber Battlefield	Sebastian Cochinescu
November 2, 10:20 AM	Your Data Is the Product	Felix Crisan
November 2, 2:00 PM	The AI Supply Chain	Felix Crisan
November 2, 3:30 PM	The AI Act in Practice	Victor Negrescu, Pavel Popescu, Tudor Galos

Why is AI a topic for a market with 5.2% adoption?

In 2025, 5.2% of Romanian companies with 10 or more employees used AI. This is the lowest rate in the European Union, compared to 20% on average and 42% in Denmark, according to Eurostat. In other words, the gap between Denmark and Romania is a factor of eight.

The organizer draws an argument from this. In its 2025 edition report, it claims that over 3,200 professionals bought or requested a ticket. However, these figures are self-reported and have not been independently verified.

The question every company in that 5.2% (soon many more) is asking is no longer ‘should we use AI,’ but ‘where does it really pay off for us.

AI Expo Europe, organizer’s blog post, July 6, 2026

How much do tickets cost and how to use COINTRIBUNE20?

Practically, the ticketing offers three tickets, according to the check on October 6, 2026. Thus, the code COINTRIBUNE20 unlocks a 20% discount; it can be entered at checkout.

Ticket	Displayed Price Excl. VAT	Networking Lunch	Awards Gala and Dinner
Standard	€99	No	No
Premium	€199	Yes	No
VIP	€399	Yes	Yes

The pricing page, however, lists lunch and the gala for all three tickets. Conversely, the agenda says otherwise. Moreover, the organizer does not specify if the code can be combined with any ongoing discount. These points should be verified before purchase.

To reserve a spot with a 20% discount, enter the code COINTRIBUNE20 on the official ticketing site. On the crypto side, the thesis of Alchemy’s CEO on AI agents extends this debate.