Leeds is up and running
AISAT's first Leeds meetup took place on Friday 16 October 2026 at The Lost & Found Leeds Club on Albion Place, and it was a brilliant start. Around 37 people came along between 5pm and 8pm for drinks, introductions and plenty of honest conversation about what AI looks like in real work.
There were no slides and no sales pitches, just people who use AI, build with it, govern it or teach it, comparing notes. That is exactly what we wanted the first Leeds event to be.
The numbers
The event sold out almost completely, with 61 of 65 places booked, and around 35 people came through the door.
| Count | |
|---|---|
| Capacity | 65 |
| Registered | 64 |
| Attended | 37 |
A Friday evening slot meant some people with weekend plans dropped out at the last minute. Even so, a turnout of roughly 58% of bookings for a free first event is a solid base, and the demand shown by registrations tells us Leeds wants this. We will test other days of the week for future dates.
Who was in the room
The mix was the best part of the evening: founders, engineers, academics, consultants, legal and governance specialists, and people leading AI adoption inside large organisations, all in one room.
- Enterprise and industry: Sky UK, Flutter Entertainment, Maples Group, Sprinklr, SecuritEase
- Founders and startups: AttendIn, Arisen AI, Cinadel, TechSkill UK, Auxilio Technologies, Sfora
- Consultancy and training: Varianto, ChiStats, IT Masterclasses, AcademyAI
- Academia: researchers and teaching staff in applied AI from the University of Bradford
- Governance and risk: AI governance, data protection and privacy counsel
- Commercial and talent: account managers, sales leaders and recruiters from QATech, FGS and Journey
Roles ranged from AI Engineer and AI Manager to Assistant Professor in Applied AI, Principal AI Consultant and Assistant General Counsel for AI. That spread made for conversations you would not get at a single-industry event.
Thank you, AcademyAI
The drinks were flowing all evening thanks to our sponsor, AcademyAI (opens in a new tab), and a big thank you to Matthew Smith, their Sales Director, for joining us on the night.
AcademyAI: the AI capability platform
AcademyAI closes the gap between AI adoption and AI outcomes. Most organisations have bought the tools. Far fewer can say whether their people are genuinely good at using them. AcademyAI assesses what your people can actually do with AI, builds that capability into their real work, turns what works into shared practice, and measures what it is worth.
Every employee is assessed against a six-axis capability profile grounded in the Turing Institute framework: Literacy, Responsible Use, Framing, Specification, Application, and Evaluation & Reflection. Together these test judgement, critical thinking, how well someone specifies work for AI, and how rigorously they assess what AI produces, so the assessment tells genuine capability apart from surface confidence. Results feed a capability radar that shows leaders where capability sits by team and by role, and exactly where the gaps are.
A special mention for Andrew
Our London Lead, Andrew Knowles, deserves a medal for effort. He set off from Kent to drive up and join us, hit the A1, and spent around 12 hours behind the wheel without ever making it to the venue.
We spent the evening talking about agents that can write code, run workflows and plan entire projects, while Andrew sat in a queue that no model on earth could optimise. AI may be coming for plenty of jobs, but it clearly hasn't solved the A1 yet. If anyone in the room is building that, Andrew would like a word.
Thank you, Andrew, for the commitment. The first round in London is on Leeds.
What's next
Leeds will be a regular fixture, and the next AISAT live event is in London in November.
- Next Leeds date: to be announced, and we will look at a midweek evening based on Friday's turnout
- London, November: already sponsored, with details on aisat.uk/events (opens in a new tab)
- Stay in touch: join the AISAT WhatsApp community, browse the free AI directory, and read the weekly AI news roundup.
Thank you to everyone who came, and to everyone who booked and couldn't make it: we will see you at the next one. If you would like to sponsor or help host a future Leeds event, get in touch through aisat.uk (opens in a new tab).