October 13, 2026
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MAICON - the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference - is the flagship annual event of the Marketing AI Institute (MAII), part of the SmarterX Ventures portfolio. The 2026 edition takes place October 13-15 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, Ohio. Now in its established run as the primary dedicated AI conference for the marketing profession, MAICON is designed specifically for non-technical audiences - marketing and business leaders and practitioners who want to understand, pilot, and scale AI within their organisations without requiring a technical background. The conference combines main stage sessions with hands-on workshops and structured networking, and is positioned as the most practical and applied AI marketing conference in the US.
MAICON is built for marketers at all levels and in all functional roles - from practitioners to CMOs - who are actively working to understand, adopt, or scale AI within their marketing operations. The event's explicit non-technical positioning makes it particularly relevant to marketing generalists and leaders who do not have data science or engineering backgrounds. Past attendees have come from B2B technology, consumer brands, agencies, and marketing services organisations across North America and internationally.
The three-day programme is organised into two primary formats. The Main Conference consists of main stage keynote sessions and breakout presentations running across all three days, covering AI trends, case studies, methodologies, and tools applicable to marketing and business leaders. The All-Access upgrade adds a dedicated hands-on Workshop day, which provides deeper, practical instruction in a smaller group format for attendees who want to move beyond theory into applied skill-building. Main stage recordings are available as an add-on for attendees who wish to revisit content after the event. Structured networking is built into the programme throughout all three days, and the conference community is an explicit part of the MAICON experience - connecting forward-thinking marketers to share best practices and lessons learned on AI adoption.
Based on the confirmed programming pillars and the direction established at MAICON 2025, the programme addresses: AI trends in marketing in 2026 and where the field is heading; executive AI education and how marketing leaders can build organisational readiness; practical AI for marketers including the tools, use cases, and workflows that drive real results; piloting and scaling AI initiatives within marketing teams; AI case studies from brand-side practitioners; AI strategy development and near-term prioritisation; and the responsible and ethical application of AI in marketing contexts.
The conference concludes on October 15 with the final sessions of the Main Conference programme. On-demand recordings of the Main Stage become available within 14 days after the conclusion of the event for attendees who have purchased the All-Access + On-Demand package.
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