# Welcome Back - Featured Keynotes

Alex Lieberman · AI Engineer NYC 2026 · October 13

[Watch recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24165s)

[06:42:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24166s) How's it going?

[06:42:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24168s) Who is the most energized in the room?

[06:42:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24171s) Whoever that was, most energized.

[06:42:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24174s) Well, welcome back for the closing keynote block here at AI Engineer New York 2026.

[06:43:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24180s) I'm Alex Lieberman, co-founder, co-managing partner at Tenex, applied AI partner for Fortune 500 businesses.

[06:43:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24188s) And we are most of the way through the first session today.

[06:43:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24192s) and hopefully it's been filled with incredible conversation,

[06:43:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24195s) which I'm going to share a little bit about some of the conversations I've had offstage in a minute.

[06:43:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24202s) But hopefully the

[06:43:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24203s) mix of the programming, the conversation you've had amongst everyone has been really fruitful today.

[06:43:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24209s) Now, before we hop into the final block of the day, let's just take a moment again to give a round of applause to our partners who make this entire event possible.

[06:43:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24219s) let's start with our presenting sponsor, Arize. Let's give a shout out to Arize.

[06:43:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24226s) yeah rise next up we have our platinum sponsors oracle sonar work os and exa let's give a shout

[06:43:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24233s) out for them and then two more we have gold sponsors i love them all they're all my favorite

[06:43:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24239s) children can't read them all off right now but thank you so much our silver sponsors

[06:44:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24246s) and to all of our supporting partners who make this possible thank everyone yeah i don't know

[06:44:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24252s) if that was the first person who said they have the most energy, but that person has a lot of

[06:44:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24256s) energy. So before we hop into the next block, one thing that I just wanted to share, and I'm sure a

[06:44:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24263s) lot of you are already feeling this already, is not only is the energy palpable across the room

[06:44:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24270s) in between all of the sessions, but what you realize when you come to AI Engineer is that

[06:44:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24277s) the content is incredible. The speakers that are curated are incredible. The depth by which they

[06:44:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24282s) talk about the work they're doing is incredible. But this is also just surface area that acts as

[06:44:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24288s) a starting point for conversation amongst everyone in the room. And so for me, not only has it been

[06:44:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24294s) incredible to stand in the back of the room at various points in the day and just listen to

[06:44:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24299s) these incredible speakers who are truly living in Edge City, but then to use all of these

[06:45:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24306s) conversations, all these talks as surface area to have conversations with folks. So a few

[06:45:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24312s) conversations that come to mind that I've had throughout the day because of the content. One

[06:45:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24316s) was a conversation with swyx, one of the people behind this incredible event. We were talking

[06:45:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24323s) about just the diffusion gap that exists in enterprise AI right now. And just some fun

[06:45:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24329s) stats for you all. We talked to hundreds of big enterprises at 10X across financial services,

[06:45:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24335s) healthcare, industrials, et cetera. And the way I think about diffusion of AI across these

[06:45:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24342s) organizations is almost in milestones of a race. So the first big milestone at an enterprise is

[06:45:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24349s) just adopting a general purpose LLM. Out of curiosity, of the, let's call it 100 firms we

[06:45:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24355s) talked to, what percentage of those firms do you think have adopted and rolled out an LLM to all

[06:46:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24361s) their employees. Someone screwing out a number. 9%, I think I heard. 17%. So specific. 90%. So

[06:46:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24371s) 90% of the enterprises we work with have rolled out a general purpose LLN. Under that is people

[06:46:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24378s) actually getting trained in how to use the technology, how to actually use these surfaces

[06:46:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24382s) in their work. That's like 60%. Next up is coding agents, agents that are actually used within

[06:46:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24388s) in engineering and product workflows.

[06:46:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24390s) That's around 50% of all the enterprises we've been in.

[06:46:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24393s) And then the final one, where we are truly still day one,

[06:46:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24397s) is agents actually working in non-engineering workflows

[06:46:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24402s) in an organization.

[06:46:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24403s) That is around 5% right now.

[06:46:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24405s) So going back to what I said earlier,

[06:46:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24407s) this community really is Edge City.

[06:46:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24409s) The topics that are being talked about,

[06:46:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24412s) we are going to continue to see those play out

[06:46:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24414s) over the next 12, 24, 36 months.

[06:46:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24418s) I've had a variety of conversations like this throughout the day.

[06:47:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24421s) It's a fusion gap, open source versus fine-tuned models,

[06:47:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24425s) how hard it is to hire great AI engineers at scale.

[06:47:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24429s) And so as we go about the rest of today,

[06:47:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24432s) but also as you think about the conference in general,

[06:47:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24435s) use the content as a starting point

[06:47:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24437s) to have interesting conversations at the edge.

[06:47:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24440s) With that, I would love to introduce you to our next talk,

[06:47:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24443s) which is with Frank Long, the head of AI at Coatue.

[06:47:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=24447s) He's gonna be talking about a hedge fund as a function. Let's welcome Frank