Every year, senior technology leaders descend upon trade show floors, swapping contact information with peers as they get a glimpse of the latest developments in enterprise IT.
From rock-show-like presentations on the keynote stage to water cooler talk next to crowded coffee stations, leaders are looking for a sense of how their initiatives are faring among peers, what obstacles other CIOs are experiencing and, most importantly, how they're solving them.
In 2026, agentic AI in the enterprise took center stage, as leaders grappled with outdated IT estates and looming skills gaps on their way to implementation. The lineup of conferences set to take place next year is likely to touch on similar themes with a slightly different tone as companies will have another year of trial, error and successes behind them.
To help navigate the conference terrain, CIO Dive has compiled its annual list of must-attend events for CIOs and other senior technology leaders.
Top CIO conferences in 2027
AI & Big Data Expo North America
June 16-17
San Jose, California
This yearly event connects technology partners and innovators working on enterprise AI deployments. The lineup of topics will include cybersecurity, data centers, edge computing and intelligent automation, featuring panels and fireside discussions with executives from Nvidia, IBM, CVS Health, Marriott International and more.
American CIO & Cybersecurity Summit
May 20-21
San Francisco, California
The ninth edition of this summit will give executives an overview of how businesses are shoring up cyber defenses amid the speedy evolution of AI tools, what strategies companies are using to extract ROI from AI and where machine learning can deliver actionable insights. Executives from Merck, Oracle and Cardinal Health are among the list of featured speakers for this event.
AWS re:Invent
TBA
Las Vegas, Nevada
The flagship summit from AWS will unveil the latest developments from the most widely used hyperscale provider. The company hosts tens of thousands of attendees at the yearly trade show, typically kicked off by a keynote speech from AWS CEO Matt Garman.
Forrester Technology and Innovation Forum
November 9–10
Chicago, Illinois
The analyst firm will hold a two-day event for technology leaders in 2027, offering actionable takeaways for enterprise technology leaders. The event will focus on how businesses can reap results from their AI implementations, the effort to modernize existing technology foundations and the link between technology and true business impact.
Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo
October 18-21
Orlando, Florida
The annual four-day conference provides an overview of the firm's theme for the coming year. Alongside analysts and IT executives, attendees will get an overview of the overarching themes in the firm's research for the year ahead — and how businesses are solving the most pressing matters in enterprise technology.
Google Cloud Next
April 13-15
Las Vegas, Nevada
Each year, Google convenes business leaders to provide an overview of the latest improvements and features for its platform and services. At the company's 2026 event, Google unveiled the Agentic Data Cloud, designed to help businesses drive widescale agentic adoption with access to key context and data.
Grace Hopper Celebration
March 17-19
Anaheim, California
For more than 30 years, the tech conference has convened thousands of women leaders, innovators and allies in tech to discuss career development strategies and the cutting-edge of technology implementation. Speakers from Nvidia, The Walt Disney Corporation, Uber, Bank of America and more have joined the speaker roster in previous editions.
Info-Tech LIVE
May 11-13
Las Vegas, Nevada
The analyst firm Info-Tech Research brings 4,000 technologists together for an overview of critical enterprise IT management topics. Its roster of analysts offer takeaways for senior leaders to watch in the year ahead.
Microsoft Ignite
TBA
TBA
Company executives and enterprise leaders gather yearly to get briefed on the latest updates to Microsoft's wide-ranging slate of services and products from Microsoft 365 to its Azure cloud platform. In 2025, the company unveiled details on its partnership with Anthropic as part of a broad push toward agentic deployment.
MIT Sloan CIO Symposium
May 18
Cambridge, Massachusetts
For more than two decades, the MIT Sloan School of Management has connected CIOs from multiple industries for in-depth discussions on technology management themes. The 2026 edition featured speakers from Liberty Mutual, Jabil, PwC and Travelers, among others.
Red Hat Summit
May 25-27
Boston, Massachusetts
IBM subsidiary Red Hat brings customers and partner providers together each year for a deep dive into the current state of open source collaboration. IBM, Google Cloud, AWS and Cisco executives have previously joined the speaker roster for this annual event.
SAP Sapphire & ASUG Annual Conference
May 24-26
Orlando, Florida
A leading provider in enterprise resource planning software, SAP's annual show brings users together with company executives for a look at the latest developments in its products and services. The 2026 edition provided updates on Joule Work, the SAP Autonomous Suite and the SAP Business AI Platform.
The AI Summit
TBA
New York, New York
Leaders from PepsiCo, TD Bank, AT&T, Paramount and more have joined the speaker roster for the yearly convening of AI decision-makers. The two-day event includes hands-on demos, fireside chats and networking opportunities with leading enterprise technologists.
Tokenomicon + FinOps X
June 7-10
San Diego, California
The FinOps Foundation's flagship event focuses on a key subject for enterprise leaders: cost management. For its 2027 edition, the foundation merged its flagship event with Tokenomicon to bring together an overview of how the biggest enterprises and tech providers enable cost-conscious AI implementations.
Disclosure: The AI Summit and CIO Dive are run by Informa, which owns a controlling stake in Informa TechTarget, the publisher behind CIO Dive. Informa has no influence over CIO Dive’s coverage.
