September 17-18, Bakery Square, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
September 14, 2026 | Read online [1]
AS AI DEBATE ERUPTS NATIONALLY, AI HORIZONS BRINGS GOVERNOR SHAPIRO,
FEDERAL REGULATOR & TOP AI LEADERS TO PITTSBURGH
September 17-18, Bakery Square, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
_Two-day summit tackles AI safety, trust, jobs, autonomous vehicles,_
_education and ethics -- from a Pittsburgh neighborhood where AI_
_companies are expanding in real time_
As the national debate intensifies over the acceleration, security, and
real-world impact of artificial intelligence, AI Horizons 2026 [2], an
initiative of the AI Strike Team, brings 1,000 technology, government,
and corporate leaders to Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday, September
17-18. Given the urgency and rapidly evolving nature of the national
conversation around AI, we have expanded capacity for AI Horizons.
The summit convenes at Bakery Square--the anchor of Pittsburgh's
expanding "AI Avenue"--to address enterprise adoption, physical
robotics, workforce disruption, and federal policy.
REGISTER NOW [3]
"We started this three years ago because we believed Pittsburgh had to
be at the center of this next economic epoch--not watching it happen
from the sidelines," said Joanna Doven, CEO of the AI Strike Team. "Now
the national conversation around AI is moving at a dizzying pace, and
Pittsburgh has exactly the people who should be helping make sense of
it--from one of the world's leading minds in AI safety building Gray
Swan here, to Skild AI pushing the frontier of physical AI, to PPG and
Wabtec putting AI to work in the real economy. We can't choose between
being responsible and being competitive--we have to figure out how to do
both. That's what AI Horizons is about: putting the builders, the
adopters, the policymakers and even a Catholic monk in the same room to
wrestle with what this technology means for our economy, our workforce
and ultimately, for us as humans."
Joanna Doven, CEO, AI Strike Team
AGENDA SNAPSHOT
20 cross-sector AI discussions -- full agenda here [4].
Thursday, Sept. 17: Trust, Policy & The Physical Economy
9:00 AM -- AI ACCEPTANCE: TRUST IS HOW WE GROW
Focus: Cybersecurity, model safety, and enterprise deployment as
prerequisites for economic growth.
Speakers: Leigh-Ann Russell, CIO & Global Head of Engineering, BNY;
Andrew Moore, CEO, Lovelace AI; Zico Kolter, PhD, Co-Founder & Chief
Scientist, Gray Swan AI (Head of Machine Learning Department, Carnegie
Mellon University); Sharon Goldman, Founder & Journalist, Ground-Level
AI; Joanna Doven, CEO, AI Strike Team.
11:30 AM -- CITIES THAT THINK: PUTTING AI TO WORK FOR COMMUNITIES
Focus: Municipal AI integration across infrastructure, public services,
and urban management.
Speakers: Corey O'Connor, Mayor, City of Pittsburgh; Jumbi Edulbehram,
Global Business Development, Smart Cities, NVIDIA; Joe Depa, Global
Innovation & Technology Leader, EY.
1:20 PM -- THE ROAD TO AUTONOMY
Focus: Federal regulatory structures and safety frameworks for
autonomous transportation.
Keynote: Jonathan Morrison, Administrator, National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA).
2:30 PM -- THE JOBS BEHIND AI: ROBOTS, ENERGY & THE PEOPLE WHO POWER IT
Focus: Power generation, physical infrastructure, and skilled labor
supply chains backing AI development.
Speakers: Jake Loosararian, Co-Founder & CEO, Gecko Robotics; Toby Rice,
President & CEO, EQT Corporation; Shawn Steffee, Business Agent,
Boilermakers Local 154; Moderator: Salena Zito, National Political
Reporter, _Washington Post_ / _New York Post_.
3:45 PM -- PENNSYLVANIA BUILDS
Focus: Pennsylvania's industrial baseline and state-level policy in the
next era of technology.
Keynote: Josh Shapiro, Governor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Friday, Sept. 18: Physical AI, Compute & Education
9:00 AM -- THE "CHATGPT MOMENT" FOR ROBOTS
Focus: Physical foundation models, commercial deployments, and
autonomous hardware scaling.
Speakers & Remarks: Dave McCormick, U.S. Senator (PA) (Special Message);
Abhinav Gupta, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Skild AI; Sarthak Vaish,
Partner, McKinsey & Company.
11:30 AM -- WHO GETS TO BUILD AI?
Focus: Compute allocation, capital intensity, and open-access innovation
models.
Speakers: David Meaney, PhD, Vice Provost for Research, University of
Pennsylvania; Abby Smith, President & CEO, Team Pennsylvania; Samuel
Reeves, Founder & CEO, FORT Robotics.
12:00 PM -- SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: PENNSYLVANIA CREATES
Focus: Statewide technical literacy initiative positioning K-12 students
as AI builders and developers.
Speakers: Dr. Carrie Rowe, Secretary of Education, Pennsylvania
Department of Education; Steven Butschi, Director of Education, Google;
Bodong Chen, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania; Gregg
Behr, Executive Director, The Grable Foundation.
1:20 PM -- CAN WE TEACH AI WISDOM?
Focus: Technical alignment, machine ethics, and moral framework
integration in advanced reasoning systems.
Speakers: Ben Levinstein, PhD, Research Scientist, Anthropic Alignment
Team; Yaser Sheikh, PhD, CEO, Sooth AI (Former VP, Meta Reality Labs);
Fr. Paul Taylor, O.S.B., President, Saint Vincent College; Moderator:
John P. Slattery, PhD, Executive Director, Carl G. Grefenstette Center
for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law, Duquesne University.
MEDIA ACCESS & B-ROLL OPPORTUNITIES
35+ Live Robotics & Physical AI Demonstrations: Active deployment of
autonomous systems, hardware inspection tech, and industrial robotics
throughout Bakery Square.
Executive Working Session (Thursday, 1:00 PM): Closed-door briefing with
enterprise CIOs and CTOs led by Keith Ferrazzi, Founder & Chairman,
Ferrazzi Greenlight (Pool still photography and camera access).
Pennsylvania Creates Interactive Labs: K-12 students and developers
collaborating in real time on software builds.
[5]
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(c) 2026 AI Strike Team
Suite 200 5500 Walnut Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1523, United Stat
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