ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026: Dates, Speakers, Passes & Full Guide (June 25)
June 25, 2026
TL;DR: The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC runs Thursday, June 25, 2026 at City Winery NYC on Pier 57 in Chelsea. It is Data Science Connect’s invite-style, roundtable-driven summit for the most senior enterprise data...
TL;DR: The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC runs Thursday, June 25, 2026 at City Winery NYC on Pier 57 in Chelsea. It is Data Science Connect’s invite-style, roundtable-driven summit for the most senior enterprise data and AI leaders, themed “AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production,” with a $2,499 all-access pass or a free pass for qualified executives at 5,000-plus-employee organizations.
Why I’m Covering the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC
Most AI conferences sell access. The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC mostly sells scarcity, and that changes who is in the room. This is not a 3,000-person expo floor; it is a curated, roundtable-first summit for chief data officers, VPs, and the senior people who actually sign off on enterprise AI. I track these events because what this audience decides about governance and platforms tends to show up in the AI tools and deals I cover a few months later.
I have already published guides to Data Science Connect’s two larger NYC and Atlanta trade shows, the AI Enterprise Conference and the COLLIDE Data + AI Conference. The ALIGN AI Executive Summit is the more exclusive sibling. Same organizer, same 2026 theme, but a different format and a far higher bar to get in the door, whether you pay or apply.
The shared 2026 theme is “AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production.” For this room, that framing is not abstract. These are the leaders whose pilots are stuck, whose boards are asking for ROI, and whose risk teams are slowing things down. A day of structured peer conversation about exactly that problem is the whole pitch.
If you run data or AI at a large enterprise and you want senior-only peer access rather than a vendor expo, this guide covers the date, the City Winery venue, the speaker lineup, the executive roundtable format, the $2,499 and free pass options, and an honest read on whether it is worth your time. The official site at datasciconnect.com has the live agenda; the breakdown below should help you decide before you apply.
ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026 Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Event name | ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026 |
| Date | Thursday, June 25, 2026 |
| Venue | City Winery NYC, Pier 57 |
| Location | Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City (Hudson River waterfront) |
| Format | In-person executive summit: general sessions, executive panels, roundtables |
| Organizer | Data Science Connect |
| 2026 theme | AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production |
| Positioning | Exclusive forum for enterprise data and AI leaders |
| Audience | Senior enterprise execs (director-level and up) |
| All-access pass | $2,499 (skip the application, limited) |
| Free pass | Free for qualified execs at non-vendor orgs with 5,000+ employees |
| Featured speakers | 18+ named (more announced closer to the event) |
| Official website | https://datasciconnect.com/events/align-ai-summit-nyc/ |
| Contact | amelia@datasciconnect.com |
Key Takeaways
- The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC is an exclusive, one-day executive summit on June 25, 2026. It runs at City Winery NYC on Pier 57 and is run by Data Science Connect, the team behind the larger COLLIDE and AI Enterprise conferences.
- The format is roundtable-first, not expo-first. Registration includes general sessions and executive panels plus an invitation to at least one executive roundtable. The value is curated peer conversation, not a vendor hall.
- The bar to attend is high, by design. The free pass requires a non-vendor organization with 5,000-plus employees and a director-level-or-above role. The paid all-access pass is $2,499. Both screen hard for seniority.
- The 2026 lineup is senior and cross-industry. Featured speakers include chief data officers and VPs from organizations like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Synchrony, Stride, and IPG Mediabrands, spanning healthcare, finance, education, and media.
- It is the premium tier of a larger 2026 series. ALIGN runs in several cities (Atlanta, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas), alongside the bigger COLLIDE and AI Enterprise conferences. The summit is the intimate, executive end of that circuit.
What Is the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC?
The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC is a one-day, invite-style executive summit held June 25, 2026 at City Winery NYC, built specifically for senior enterprise data and AI leaders. Data Science Connect describes the ALIGN summits as “the exclusive forum for enterprise data and AI leaders,” and the whole event is engineered around that exclusivity rather than scale.
The core difference from a normal conference is the format. Where a trade show optimizes for the number of badges and booths, ALIGN optimizes for the quality of the conversation. Registration includes all general sessions with presentations and executive panels, plus an invitation to at least one executive roundtable, breakfast, lunch, a networking reception, and the exhibit hall. The roundtable is the centerpiece: a smaller, facilitated peer discussion where senior leaders solve shared problems together rather than listen to a keynote.
That design tells you who it is for. This is not built for individual contributors or early-career analysts looking to learn a framework. It is built for the people who own enterprise AI strategy and budgets and who get the most value from a room of true peers. If you have ever left a giant conference wishing you could have just talked to the ten people who actually do your job, the ALIGN summit is the format built for that wish.
Who the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC Is Built For
The attendee profile is deliberately narrow and senior. Here is how I read the target list based on the lineup and the qualification criteria.
Chief data officers and chief AI officers: The summit explicitly courts the C-suite of the data and AI function. The free-pass criterion of director-level-and-up at a 5,000-plus-employee organization filters for exactly this seniority.
VPs and senior directors of data, analytics, and ML: The bulk of the named speakers sit at VP and senior-director level across analytics, ML engineering, and data strategy. These are the people running large teams and multi-year roadmaps.
Enterprise AI innovation and platform leaders: With multiple AI innovation leads and a director of embedded AI on the roster, the summit clearly targets leaders responsible for moving AI from experiment into the core of the business.
Solution and service providers: Vendors attend through sponsorship and the exhibit hall, but the free pass explicitly excludes vendors. That keeps the roundtables genuinely peer-only, which is the entire point.
If you are a solo founder, an SMB owner, or an early-career practitioner, this is not your event, and the $2,499 price tag makes that clear. For smaller teams, the best AI tools for business and lifetime deals I track will deliver far more value than an enterprise summit pass.
When and Where Is the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026?
The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC takes place Thursday, June 25, 2026 at City Winery NYC, the experiential venue on Pier 57 in Chelsea, Manhattan. It is a single-day, in-person summit, and the venue choice is part of the experience rather than an afterthought.
City Winery NYC is a premier experiential space that blends a world-class concert setting with elevated dining and curated wine experiences. Overlooking the Hudson River, it offers striking waterfront views and a high-energy Manhattan atmosphere designed to spark connection and conversation. For an event whose value depends on senior people actually talking to each other, that is a smart venue choice. A concert-and-wine setting on the water encourages the kind of relaxed, candid conversation that a fluorescent-lit convention hall actively suppresses.
The location also fits the audience. Pier 57 sits on Manhattan’s west side along the Hudson, walking distance from Chelsea and a short ride from Midtown, putting it within easy reach of the banks, insurers, media companies, and health systems whose leaders headline the summit. For a one-day event aimed at busy executives, a central Manhattan waterfront venue minimizes the friction of attending.
Getting There and Planning Your Trip
A few practical notes, since the summit provides a “Plan Your Trip” section but the basics are worth stating plainly.
New York is served by JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark, so flights are frequent from almost anywhere. City Winery at Pier 57 is on the west side of Manhattan in Chelsea, reachable by subway, cab, or a short walk from many Midtown and downtown hotels. As with any Manhattan event, budget extra time if you are arriving from an outer-borough airport during rush hour.
Because the summit is a single day, the trip math is simple: travel, one or two hotel nights, and the pass if you are paying. For the many attendees already based in the New York metro or the Northeast corridor, it becomes a same-day trip with no lodging cost. If you are deciding which 2026 AI events justify executive time, I keep notes on which ones actually deliver in my ongoing AI tools and industry coverage.
ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC Theme and Content Pillars
The 2026 theme is “AI for Enterprise: From Pilots to Production,” shared across the entire Data Science Connect series. The organizers state their view directly: enterprise AI is no longer a model conversation, it is a systems, governance, and value conversation. In 2026, the difficulty is not accessing models or running experiments, it is building AI that is scalable, governed, secure, and tied to real business outcomes.
That framing matches where large organizations actually are. Most have run AI pilots; far fewer have moved them into reliable, governed production. Research from McKinsey’s State of AI work has consistently shown that scaling AI from experiment to enterprise value is where most of the difficulty, and most of the unrealized return, sits. The ALIGN summit is built around that gap, but discussed at the executive level rather than the engineering level.
The program organizes around four content pillars with a broad topic map underneath. Here is what each emphasis means for a senior leader.
Pillar 1: AI as a System
The first pillar argues that enterprise AI is no longer about deploying a model, it is about operating a system. That means evaluation, observability, context management, release discipline, and resilience over time. The agenda covers the shift from classic retrieval-augmented generation toward broader context engineering that incorporates retrieval, orchestration, tool use, and emerging protocols such as MCP within a larger enterprise architecture.
The listed discussion points include context engineering beyond classic RAG, evaluation and observability for AI system reliability, LLMOps and GenAIOps for production, treating agents as systems rather than features, and enterprise knowledge architecture for grounded AI. At an executive summit, the value is less in the technical detail and more in hearing how peers are organizing teams, budgets, and governance around these systems.
The Full Topic Map
Beyond the headline pillars, the summit lists a broad set of topics that map to the real concerns of a senior enterprise data and AI leader:
- AI Systems and Application Layer: how AI capabilities become products and workflows.
- AI Engineering, LLMOps, and Evaluation: the operational discipline of shipping and maintaining AI.
- Data Foundations and Engineering: the data work that decides whether any AI initiative succeeds.
- Knowledge and Retrieval Systems: grounding AI in enterprise knowledge for accurate, trusted output.
- AI Infrastructure and Performance: the compute, latency, and cost realities of AI at scale.
- Governance, Risk, and Security: the defining executive concern, especially in regulated industries.
- AI Economics and Optimization: measuring ROI and controlling the cost of AI workloads.
- Platform Strategy and Integration: build-versus-buy and how AI fits the existing stack.
- Enterprise Adoption and Operating Model: the organizational change required to make AI stick.
The breadth is deliberate, because an enterprise AI program touches engineering, data, security, legal, and finance. Want a quick read on which AI tools map to these enterprise needs? My roundup of the best AI tools for 2026 covers the categories these roundtables debate.
ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026 Featured Speakers
The speaker lineup signals the seniority and cross-industry mix the summit is built for. The 2026 roster features 18-plus named data and AI leaders, with more announced closer to the event. These are operators and executives, not professional conference speakers.
A few of the featured names and roles announced for 2026:
- Isaac Wagner, Vice President, Analytics and Insights at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- Vida Williams, Chief Data Officer at Stride
- Rachna Narem, Senior Managing Director, AI Innovation Lead at IPG Mediabrands
- Nasim Khoshkhou, SVP, Analytics and Data at Synchrony
- Claire Dulaney Willet, Global Executive Director of Data and Analytics
- Guy Merritt, Chief Technology Officer
- Sean Weiss, Director of Embedded AI
- Ayan Dutta, Manager, Agentic AI
The rest of the announced lineup includes Raju Gorakhiya, Ruth Hubbard, Barclay Blair, Pablo Vega-Behar, Ravikanth Gadicherla, Sreeja Kaimal, Rohan Kodialam, Saurabh Mishra, Sam Sternberg, and Bob Fintel, spanning data strategy, ML engineering, analytics, and product leadership.
Notice the range of industries: healthcare (Memorial Sloan Kettering), financial services (Synchrony), education technology (Stride), and media (IPG Mediabrands). That cross-industry mix is a feature of the executive format. At a roundtable, hearing how a cancer center governs sensitive-data AI next to how a consumer-finance company handles model risk produces insights you would never get from a single-vertical event. The presence of a dedicated agentic AI lead also signals that 2026 conversations will push well past chatbots into autonomous systems.
The best ideas at an executive summit rarely come from your own industry. They come from watching someone in a completely different sector solve the same governance problem with a constraint you never had to think about. - Alston Antony
ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026 Passes and Pricing
The summit offers two ways in, and both screen hard for seniority. Here is the breakdown, verified directly from the event site.
| Pass | Price | Who it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| All-Access Pass (skip the application) | $2,499 | Anyone who wants guaranteed entry without applying; limited and may sell out |
| Apply to Attend (free) | Free | Qualified senior execs at non-vendor orgs with 5,000+ employees |
The all-access pass at $2,499 lets you skip the application entirely and secure your seat. It includes in-person access to all general sessions with presentations and executive panels, an invitation to at least one executive roundtable, breakfast and lunch and a networking reception, and the exhibit hall. Data Science Connect notes these passes are limited and will sell out, so the urgency is real if you intend to pay your way in.
The free pass is the route most qualified leaders should take, but the bar is high. To qualify you must meet all three criteria: your company is not a vendor with sales interest in AI end-users, you work at a non-vendor organization with 5,000 or more employees, and you hold a senior-level position at director level or above. You complete a registration form and the team confirms whether you have been selected. Note how much stricter this is than the larger COLLIDE and AI Enterprise conferences, which set the free-pass bar at 250-plus employees. ALIGN is screening for genuine enterprise scale and seniority.
There is no media pass listed for this summit, unlike the larger conferences. If you are press, the AI Enterprise Conference or COLLIDE are the better-fit Data Science Connect events to pitch.
A practical note on the economics. The $2,499 price and the 5,000-employee free-pass floor are both deliberate filters. They keep the room small, senior, and vendor-light, which is exactly what makes the roundtables valuable. You are not paying for content you could stream; you are paying for the curation of who else is in the room. If you qualify for the free pass, apply early, because the allocation is described as highly limited.
Is the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC Worth It?
It depends entirely on which pass you are holding. If you qualify for the free pass, the value is obvious: a curated room of senior peers and a facilitated roundtable for the cost of a day and a trip to Manhattan. For a CDO or VP, that is an easy yes.
If you are weighing the $2,499 paid pass, be honest about your goal. For pure learning, that price is hard to justify against a $499 conference pass or free webinars. For high-level networking and being in a small room with peers who can become advisors, partners, or references, $2,499 for a day can pay for itself with a single relationship. For vendors, the real play is sponsorship, not an attendee pass. The one group that should skip it outright is anyone seeking hands-on technical training. This is a strategy and relationship event, not a workshop.
How ALIGN Compares to COLLIDE and the AI Enterprise Conference
Because all three events share an organizer and a theme, the natural question is which one fits you. Here is the honest comparison.
| Factor | ALIGN AI Executive Summit | AI Enterprise Conference | COLLIDE Data + AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Exclusive roundtable summit | Conference and trade show | Conference and trade show |
| Scale | Small, senior, curated | Larger, single-day | Largest, single-day |
| City / date | NYC, June 25 | NYC, September 1 | Atlanta, October 1 |
| Paid pass | $2,499 | $499 | $499 |
| Free-pass bar | 5,000+ employees, director+ | 250+ employees, senior role | 250+ employees, senior role |
The decision is mostly about format and seniority. If you are a senior executive who wants curated peer roundtables and is willing to clear a high bar, ALIGN is the pick. If you want a broader day of sessions, a real expo floor, and an easier free-pass qualification, the AI Enterprise Conference in September or the COLLIDE conference in October are better fits. The content theme is identical across all three, so choose based on the room you want and the format that matches how you learn.
How to Register for the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026
Registration runs through the official event site, and the path depends on which route you take.
- Decide: apply or pay. If you work at a non-vendor enterprise with 5,000+ employees in a director-or-above role, apply for the free pass first. If you do not qualify, or want a guaranteed seat without waiting on a decision, buy the $2,499 all-access pass.
- To apply free, complete the application form. The Data Science Connect team reviews applications and follows up to confirm whether you have been selected, since the allocation is limited and selective.
- To skip the application, register and pay the $2,499 rate to lock in your seat before the limited passes sell out.
- Book travel once confirmed. Because this is a single day, hold off on non-refundable travel until your free pass is approved if you are applying.
The pressure here is allocation, not an early-bird clock. The free seats are limited and reviewed on a rolling basis, so earlier applications have better odds, and the paid passes are explicitly described as limited. Either way, deciding sooner improves your chances of getting in. Want a heads-up on which AI events and tools are actually worth executive time in 2026? Get the rundown in my weekly AI deals and industry brief, where every pick comes with a straight recommendation, no hype.
The Broader ALIGN Series and Data Science Connect
The NYC summit is one stop on a multi-city ALIGN circuit. Data Science Connect runs ALIGN AI Executive Summits in several cities across 2026, including Atlanta, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas, so if the June 25 NYC date does not work, another city likely will. The summits all share the same exclusive, roundtable-first format and the same 2026 theme. The ALIGN AI summit series exists to unite enterprise data and AI industry leaders around the latest trends in operationalizing AI, and each stop runs a tiered sponsor program for vendors that want access to that room.
Alongside the ALIGN summits, Data Science Connect runs its two larger trade-show-style conferences: the AI Enterprise Conference in New York and the COLLIDE Data + AI Conference in Atlanta. Together they form a tiered circuit: the ALIGN summits for senior, curated, roundtable access, and the conferences for broader, expo-style reach. Knowing the full calendar helps you pick the right event for your role and your goal rather than defaulting to whichever one you heard about first.
The credibility signal across the series is the repeat-attendance pattern. Data Science Connect events have drawn attendees and sponsors including Verizon, Axcelis Technologies, Teleperformance, and data platform vendors such as Coginiti, Plotly, and Tecton, several of whom return year over year. For an exclusive summit, that track record matters more than any “exclusive forum” marketing line.
Final Verdict: Should You Attend the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC?
Attend if you are a senior enterprise data or AI leader who values a curated room of true peers over a crowded expo floor. The roundtable-first format, the cross-industry executive lineup, and the intimate City Winery setting are built for exactly one thing: high-quality peer conversation about moving AI from pilots into production. If you qualify for the free pass, it is close to an automatic yes, since your only real cost is a day and a trip to Manhattan.
Think harder if you are paying the $2,499 rate, and skip it entirely if you are an individual contributor, an SMB owner, or anyone hoping for hands-on technical training. The summit’s value scales with your seniority and your need to build executive relationships, not with your desire to learn a new tool.
Here is the one insight that is not on the registration page: the price and the 5,000-employee bar are not obstacles, they are the product. Anyone can buy a ticket to a 3,000-person conference. What you cannot easily buy is a small room of genuine peers who run AI at organizations your size, with no vendors angling for a sale. That curation is the entire value of ALIGN, and it is why the format commands a premium. Your concrete first step today is simple: check whether you meet the three free-pass criteria, and if you do, submit the application before the limited seats fill. If you do not qualify but the room is worth it to you, secure the $2,499 pass before it sells out.
Want to keep up with the AI events, tools, and deals worth your budget in 2026? Browse our tested AI tools and deals, where every recommendation gets an honest buy, wait, or skip.
Frequently Asked Questions About the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC
When and where is the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026?
The ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC takes place Thursday, June 25, 2026 at City Winery NYC on Pier 57 in Chelsea, Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River. It is a single-day, in-person executive summit.
How much does it cost to attend?
The all-access pass that skips the application is $2,499 and is limited. There is also a free pass for qualified attendees who meet all three criteria. The paid passes are described as limited and likely to sell out, so registering or applying early is the safer move.
Who can get a free pass to the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC?
To qualify for the free pass, you must meet all three criteria: your company is not a vendor with sales interest in AI end-users, you work at a non-vendor organization with 5,000 or more employees, and you hold a senior-level position at director level or above. Applications are reviewed and selective.
Who are the speakers at the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC 2026?
The 2026 lineup features 18-plus senior data and AI leaders, including Isaac Wagner (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), Vida Williams (Stride), Rachna Narem (IPG Mediabrands), and Nasim Khoshkhou (Synchrony), spanning healthcare, finance, education, and media. More speakers are announced closer to the event.
How is the ALIGN summit different from COLLIDE and the AI Enterprise Conference?
ALIGN is the exclusive, roundtable-first executive summit, with a $2,499 pass and a 5,000-employee free-pass bar. COLLIDE (Atlanta, October) and the AI Enterprise Conference (NYC, September) are larger trade-show-style conferences with $499 passes and a 250-employee free-pass bar. All three share the same organizer and theme.
Are there other ALIGN AI Executive Summits besides NYC?
Yes. Data Science Connect runs ALIGN AI Executive Summits in several cities across 2026, including Atlanta, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas. They share the same exclusive format and theme, so if the NYC date does not fit, another city may.
Is the ALIGN AI Executive Summit NYC worth attending?
For senior enterprise data and AI executives, yes, especially with the free pass, since the value is a curated room of peers and a facilitated roundtable. The $2,499 paid pass is justified for high-level networking but hard to justify for pure learning. It is not suited to individual contributors or anyone seeking hands-on technical training.