Code of Conduct

AISAT works because people turn up and say true things about what has actually worked for them, including the parts that went badly. That only happens in a room where people feel safe, respected and able to admit what they do not know.

This code exists to keep it that way. It is not here to catch you out. Most of it is what you would do anyway; the rest is the bit worth saying out loud, so that nobody has to guess where the line is and nobody has to be the first person to raise something.

This applies to every part of AISAT:

• meetups in London and Leeds, and everything around them (the queue, the food table, the pub afterwards);
• online sessions, including the chat and the Q&A;
• Women that Use AI events;
• the WhatsApp community group, including direct messages to someone you met there;
• the question of the day on this site, the threads members start themselves on AI Threads, and every reply in either;
• the AI Directory, your listing and any message you send through the site; and
• anywhere else you are representing AISAT, including social media posts about our events.

It applies to everyone equally: members, guests, speakers, sponsors, venue staff and organisers. Organisers are not exempt. If an organiser is the problem, section 8 tells you how to report it without going through them.

• Be generous. Share the thing that took you three weeks to work out. Somebody did that for you once.
• Assume good faith. People come at AI from wildly different starting points. A question that sounds naive to you is usually just a different context.
• Make room for other voices. If you have already asked two questions, let someone else in. If you are in a group of five and one person has not spoken, turn towards them.
• No gatekeeping. Nobody at an AISAT event needs to prove they are technical enough, senior enough, or doing “real” AI. Prompt engineers, researchers, ops people and the curious are all in the right room.
• Respect how people identify. Use the name and pronouns someone gives you. If you get it wrong, correct yourself briefly and move on.
• Treat what is shared in confidence as confidential. People tell us about failed projects and internal numbers because they trust the room. Do not repost it, quote it on LinkedIn, or take it to their competitor.
• Look after the venue and the people in it. Venue staff are hosting us for free or close to it. Be as good to them as you are to the speaker.
• Take a hint gracefully. “It was nice to meet you” sometimes means a conversation is finished. Let it be.

None of this is welcome at AISAT, in a room, in a video call or in a message:

• Harassment of any kind: sexual attention nobody asked for, comments about someone’s body or appearance, persistent unwanted contact, following someone, or standing between somebody and the exit.
• Discriminatory language or behaviour based on sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, neurodivergence, age, pregnancy or appearance.
• Slurs, “jokes” that rely on a stereotype, and the defence that it was only banter.
• Deliberately misgendering someone, or using a name they have told you they no longer use.
• Unwanted physical contact. Ask before touching anyone, including a hand on the shoulder.
• Sustained disruption of a talk: heckling, talking over the speaker, or a question that is really a ten-minute pitch for your own product.
• Photographing, filming or recording someone who has asked you not to, and sharing an image of someone without their agreement.
• Unwanted recruitment or sales approaches (see the next section, because this one needs detail).
• Passing on someone’s contact details, or the content of a private message, without their permission.
• Intimidation, threats, stalking, or encouraging anyone else to do any of the above.
• Retaliation against someone for raising a concern in good faith. This one we treat as seriously as the original behaviour.

Recruiters, founders, vendors and consultants are all welcome at AISAT. A good number of our members are all four at once. What is not welcome is treating the room as a lead list.

• Ask before you pitch. “Do you mind if I tell you what we do? ” costs you five seconds and changes the whole conversation.
• If someone says they are not looking, not hiring or not interested, that is a complete answer. Do not circle back later in the evening, and do not try their colleague instead.
• Do not work the room collecting CVs, and do not photograph badges or the attendee list.
• Do not use the WhatsApp group for cold outreach, and do not message every member individually with the same pitch.
• Do not harvest the AI Directory into a mailing list, a CRM or a dataset. That is also a breach of our Terms & Conditions.
• Sponsors get a slot from the stage and a mention from the organisers. That is the deal, and it does not extend to a sales sweep of the room afterwards.

Genuine conversations about real, specific work are exactly why people come. The difference between a good approach and a bad one is whether the other person is a colleague or a target.

Women that Use AI is a chapter with its own events, its own speakers and a deliberately supportive room. It exists because rooms in this industry are not evenly weighted, and because a different room produces different conversations: more questions, more honesty about what has not worked, less performance.

Women that Use AI events are open to every member, whatever their gender. The chapter centres women’s work and women speakers, but attendance is not restricted by sex or gender and never will be. If you are coming as an ally, come as an ally: listen more than you talk, and let the questions come from the people the evening is for.

Everything in this code applies at those events, with one addition: if you would prefer to raise a concern with a woman organiser, at any AISAT event, just ask. We will arrange it, and you never have to give a reason.

We take photographs at meetups and sometimes record talks, mostly so that people who could not make it can see what they missed.

• If you would rather not be photographed, tell any organiser, on the night or at any point during it, and we will keep you out of shot. You do not have to explain why.
• If you are in a photo you would rather we did not use, email privacy@aisat.uk and we will take it down. We do not ask why.
• Speakers are told in advance if a talk is being recorded, and can decline.
• As an attendee, do not record the room, a talk or a conversation without asking. Photographing a slide is usually fine; filming the audience is not.

What we do with your registration details, badges and the attendee list is a separate matter, explained in the Privacy Policy.

If something happens, please tell us. You do not need to be certain, you do not need evidence, and it does not have to have happened to you. A quiet word about something that felt off is genuinely useful, and we would much rather hear it early than find out later that somebody stopped coming.

You are welcome to report on someone else’s behalf, with their agreement. You can also report anonymously (simply say so in the email), although it is harder for us to act on something we cannot ask any follow-up questions about.

If anyone is in immediate danger, call 999 first, or find venue security. Looking after each other comes before our process.

Here is what to expect, so that reporting feels less like a leap.

• We will acknowledge your report within two working days, and tell you who is handling it.
• It is seen by a small group of organisers, and only by them. If one of them is involved in what you are reporting, they are kept out of it entirely.
• We will listen properly and take what you say seriously. You will not be asked to justify feeling uncomfortable.
• We will not share your name with the person you have reported without asking you first. Sometimes that limits what we can do, and we will be honest with you about that trade-off.
• Where it is fair to do so, we will hear the other person’s account before deciding anything.
• We will tell you what we have decided and what we are doing about it, as far as we properly can.
• We keep a confidential record of reports and outcomes, so that a pattern is not lost when organisers change. How long we keep it is set out in the Privacy Policy.

What happens next depends on what has happened. We aim to be proportionate rather than dramatic, and often a quiet word is the end of it. Depending on the seriousness, we may:

• have a private conversation and ask someone to stop;
• ask someone to apologise, or to leave a particular person alone for the rest of the evening;
• ask someone to leave an event;
• remove someone from the WhatsApp group;
• take a reply, or a whole thread, down from AI Threads;
• unpublish a directory listing;
• decline future event registrations;
• end a membership, permanently where necessary; or
• where there is a risk to others, tell the venue, other community organisers, or the police.

Serious behaviour gets an immediate response, and we will talk about it afterwards rather than first. If you think a decision was wrong, email hello@aisat.uk and an organiser who was not involved will review it. The related membership terms are in our Terms & Conditions.

Almost everyone who comes to AISAT is already doing all of this without being asked. Writing it down is for the rare occasion when somebody is not, and so that anyone deciding whether to walk into a room full of strangers knows where we stand before they arrive.

Thank you for making it the kind of community where people ask real questions. If any of this is unclear, or you think we have missed something, tell us at hello@aisat.uk. This code should get better over time, and the people it protects are the right people to improve it.