New York GILD AI Forum: AI and Engineering Leaders Dinner

This GILD AI Forum brings together CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Heads of AI, and senior technical leaders for candid conversations about building, scaling, and implementing AI inside their companies.

This isn't a conference. It's not a panel. It's a small, curated room of technical leaders sharing what's actually working, what's not, and the real challenges of shipping AI in the AI era.

Each Forum opens with a Conversation Starter, a practitioner sharing what their team is building with AI, followed by open Q&A. From there, the room breaks into intimate discussions where everyone has a seat at the table. Every attendee brings their own experience. Every attendee contributes.

No pitches. No performative networking. Just senior technical leaders being honest about the architectures they're choosing, the tradeoffs they're making, and what they wish they'd figured out sooner.

TRENDING THEMES FOR THIS SESSION

Conversations at the Forum are shaped by what technical leaders bring to the table. Themes likely to surface this evening include

• From AI pilots to AI in production: breaking out of the proof-of-concept trap and scaling agents into real workflows
• Connecting AI to legacy systems: architectural patterns for integrating modern AI with 20-year-old stacks without breaking everything
• The AI tooling budget problem: balancing experimentation with unsustainable spend as engineers blow through AI tool budgets
• Engineers as curators, not creators: the shift from writing code to orchestrating AI agents, reusable components, and external services
• MCP, multi-agent systems, and the orchestration layer: what's working, what's overhyped, and what technical leaders are actually building
• Guardrails and governance for AI-generated code: who's accountable when the AI writes it, and what review processes actually hold up in production

Presented in partnership with Tecla and Kurrent

Tecla gives companies flexible access to vetted talent across the US and Latin America, developed for AI-native work and available from fractional engagements to dedicated nearshore pods.

Learn more at www.tecla.io

Kurrent captures coding-agent work as it happens, creating a record of shared intelligence—giving agents, developers, and teams evidence to understand what was built and knowledge to steer what comes next.

Learn more at www.kurrent.io

THE FORMAT

Intentionally small and highly curated, 20 to 25 max. A seated round-table dinner, private and off the record under Chatham House Rules.

AGENDA

6:00 – 6:30 PM · Cocktails and passed appetizers

6:30 – 7:00 PM · Dinner is served Find a seat and get comfortable.

6:45 – 6:50 PM · GILD and Partner Welcome A few words from the GILD team and our partners on what the night holds and how we'll spend it together.

6:50 – 7:00 PM · Conversation Starter A fellow engineering leader opens the discussion with a candid perspective on AI, with a brief Q&A.

7:00 – 8:00 PM · Table discussions

8:00 – 8:30 PM · Open mingling

WHO THIS IS FOR

Senior engineering and AI leaders at later-stage private companies and large enterprises, with teams of 100+ engineers already using AI coding agents and tools.

CTOs and Chief AI Officers

VPs of Engineering and Heads of Engineering

Heads of AI, AI Platform and Developer Productivity

Chief Product Officers and Heads of Product Engineering

CIOs and digital transformation leaders who own AI and engineering tooling decisions

Founders and CEOs of AI-native and software companies scaling their engineering orgs

Investors and operating partners backing technical teams

Chatham House Rules apply. Discussion stays private.