The PyCon US Blog

Friendships, collaborations, and breakthroughs  The fun, the learning, and the inspiration don't stop when you walk out of the convention center. Some of the most memorable moments from PyCon US happen in the lobby at 10 pm, laughing with someone you only knew as a username until an hour ago; over breakfast, where a casual conversation turns into a collaboration that lasts years; and on the walks to and from the conference. PyCon US hotels have their own lore. We asked people about their experiences and were overwhelmed, it turns out that everyone has a story! " One story stands out to me beyond getting to know each other and sharing ideas. When I was getting ready to give my first PyCon talk in Montreal, Selena Deckelmann offered to help review my slides and listen to me practice. We spent a few hours on the floor of her hotel room prepping while her very young daughter crawled around on the floor and chewed on my PyCon badge since she was teething. It's still one of my f...

Finding AI insights and education at PyCon US 2026 While AI content is sprinkled throughout the event, how could it not be, PyCon US features a dedicated The Future of AI with Python track, new this year, and programmed by Elaine Wong, PyCon US Chair, Jon Banafato, PyCon US Co-Chair, and Philip Gagnon, Program Committee Chair. According to JetBrains' State of Developer Ecosystem 2025 report, 85% of developers now regularly use AI tools for coding and development (which tell us that you are probably doing that), and 62% rely on at least one AI coding assistant, agent, or code editor. Looking ahead, nearly half of all developers (49%) plan to try AI coding agents in the coming year, and the eight sessions in this track map onto those priorities, covering everything from running LLMs on your laptop to building real-time voice agents. Take a look at the big themes and the sessions and tutorials you won't want to miss in our new track and throughout the event.  Let’s start with ...

PyCon US has always been about more than just a programming language; it’s about the incredible, global community that builds, supports, and innovates with it. This year at PyCon US 2026 in Long Beach, we are thrilled to celebrate a remarkable milestone for our community: our very first Spanish-language keynote address , delivered by the brilliant Pablo Galindo Salgado! Meet Your Keynote Speaker: Pablo Galindo Salgado If you’ve used Python recently, you’ve benefited from Pablo’s work . Pablo works on the Python team at Hudson River Trading and is a CPython core developer . He is currently serving his 6th term on the Python Steering Council and served as the release manager for Python 3.10 and 3.11. But his background isn't just in software engineering—Pablo is a Theoretical Physicist specializing in general relativity and black hole physics! (He also has a cat, though he assures us that his cat does not write any code). With his deep technical expertise and unique scientific pers...

Each year at PyCon US, Startup Row highlights a select group of early-stage companies building ambitious products with Python at their core. The 2026 cohort reflects a rapidly evolving landscape, where advances in AI, data infrastructure, and developer tooling are reshaping how software is built, deployed, and secured. This year’s companies aim to solve an evolving set of problems facing independent developers and large-scale organizations alike: securing AI-driven applications, managing multimodal data, orchestrating autonomous agents, automating complex workflows, and extracting insight from increasingly unstructured information. Across these domains, Python continues to serve as a unifying layer: encouraging experimentation, enabling systems built to scale, and connecting open-source innovation with real-world impact. Startup Row brings these emerging teams into direct conversation with the Python community at PyCon US. Throughout the conference, attendees can meet founders, explore...