San Francisco GILD AI Forum: AI and Engineering Leaders Dinner

The San Francisco GILD AI Forum brings together senior AI and engineering leaders for candid conversations about what's actually working in their companies, what's not, and the real challenges of shipping AI in production.

Each Forum opens with a Conversation Starter, a practitioner sharing what their team is building with AI, followed by open Q&A.

The room then breaks into intimate discussions where each attendee introduces themselves, their company, and provides context regarding a current project, challenge, win, or loss with AI. Each attendee shares something they are building, have recently built, or a recent success. This provides context for the group to engage in peer-to-peer discussion, asking questions about specific implementations, adoption challenges, and technical approaches based on what each person brings to the table.

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

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

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

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

Founders · CEOs · CTOs · VPs of Engineering · Heads of AI · Technical Leaders · Product Leaders

This session is for leaders responsible for building, deploying, and maintaining AI systems in production.

*Chatham House Rules apply. Discussion stays private.*