SXSW London Courtesy of SXSW London SXSW London 2026 kicks off on Monday, bringing a flurry of keynote appearances, panel discussions, film screenings, music events and visual arts showcases to the British capital. During its inaugural edition last year, more than 20,000 visitors attended, with organizers counting people from over 80 different countries.
SXSW London chief programming officer Katy Arnander and her team have again put together a very British, or even London, take on the SXSW ethos. “It’s got the Austin DNA in the model, but it’s also got a London twist,” she tells THR. “Because, of course, London is very different from Austin. So, we have this incredible program mix of conference, screen, music, and also some visual arts because we’re here in London. It’s about discovery,” learning and experiencing new things and exchanging yourself.
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“Spain in Transmission: New Digital Work,” which is in the spotlight in the arts part of the program, gives you that chance by bringing together four artists, namely Enrique Agudo, filip custic, Jesu Moratiel and Marina Núñez. “Although Spain is celebrated for cultural icons from Goya and Velazquez to Dali and Picasso, the country has also become a center of innovation and has produced a new generation of artists who embrace digital tools as central to their production,” explains the SXSW London website, emphasizing that the event is “committed to exploring both the challenges and opportunities of technology in the creative industries.”
In that same vein, artificial intelligence and robotics, and how they and should change various parts of life, are topics across the SXSW London 2026 conference schedule. These were themes that kept coming up in the curation process. So, it was never really a question about how to address AI. “My question on that is: what doesn’t involve AI now?” Arnander shares. “AI is now a proprietary tool that affects everything, from editors, filmmakers, musicians, other creatives, research and development for new medicines and the workplace. So, everything is about AI now. Anything that we talk about has an AI spin on it. The debate that’s coming through for everybody is more about how AI is going to change my particular world?”
SXSW London discussions for creatives, she adds, will naturally feature such questions as “Am I going to use those AI tools to compose, or how am I going to integrate them within my practice, so that I can use them as a tool rather than be dominated by them?”
Speaking of protecting yourself from AI: World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee will present Charlie, a personal AI assistant built on the open web standard that he created to empower individuals with control over their data. “Charlie acts as your advocate and gatekeeper in front of the AI tools you already use,” notes a SXSW London preview.
Katy Arnander, courtesy of SXSW London Meanwhile, robotics will be in focus in such sessions as one entitled “A Robot Walks Into the Office…” Nathan Wallace, the head of robotics at NextGen Ri, the U.K. partner of Unitree Robotics, will explore what happens “when humanoid robots step off the factory floor and into the spaces where we work, interact, and build our livelihoods” – and he will bring a Unitree G1 humanoid robot onto the stage with him. Similarly, a panel will debate the topic: “Seeing Is Believing: The Vision Behind Humanoid & Robotic AI.”
“We call that futurism in practice,” explains Arnander. “What does it look like to live in the future?”
A different kind of tech debate you can expect at SXSW London will be about the power of technology giants and the Tech Bros. “A theme that came through is this idea of how techno feudalism and media have changed the way that people communicate and run political campaigns, for example, or how they communicate to their different listeners and groups, and how that can shape influence and policy,” Arnander tells THR. “And we need look no further than President Trump to see how AI actually is shaping a lot of the way that he’s communicating with his audience and followers as well.”
If just the thought of political divisions gives you a headache, mental health and related issues of dealing with the state of the planet are also a recurring theme across the SXSW London conference schedule. “This year, there are quite a lot of sessions on mental health and on how to cope with the world that we’re living in, particularly children and social media, including what we should be sharing, what we shouldn’t be sharing,” highlights the programming chief.
Case in point: a session entitled “Overloaded with Ruby Wax.” Says Arnander: “We’ve got Ruby Wax, the actor, writer, but also trained in and talks a lot about mental health.” Indeed, Wax has a master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Oxford University.
And what helps mental health more than connections and community?! In line with that, SXSW London has expanded its networking and mentoring offerings this year, with more than 120 mentors. “We have a lot more networking and mentoring sessions, because what we heard last year was that people come to these events in real life to meet each other and to discover and share ideas and to discover new things they might not know,” Arnander tells THR. “So we [answered that demand by] setting up specific networking sessions. We have over 120 one-to-one mentors for 20-minute sessions. It’s like speed dating, and you book it on the app, which is much better this year.”
Plus, of course, there is also the social aspect of London. “We have many more open parties for our delegates to attend,” concludes Arnander. “So, we’re all about networking this year.”
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