# Welcome Back - Featured Keynotes

Alex Lieberman · AI Engineer NYC 2026 · October 13

[Watch recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25762s)

[07:09:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25762s) How's it going?

[07:09:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25764s) Who is the most energized in the room?

[07:09:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25767s) Whoever that was, most energized.

[07:09:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25770s) Well, welcome back for the closing keynote block here at AI Engineer New York 2026.

[07:09:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25777s) I'm Alex Lieberman, co-founder, co-managing partner at Tenex, applied AI partner for Fortune 500 businesses.

[07:09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25784s) And we are most of the way through the first session today.

[07:09:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25788s) and hopefully it's been filled with incredible conversation,

[07:09:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25791s) which I'm going to share a little bit about some of the conversations I've had offstage in a minute.

[07:09:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25798s) But hopefully the

[07:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25800s) mix of the programming, the conversation you've had amongst everyone has been really fruitful today.

[07:10:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25805s) 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.

[07:10:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25816s) let's start with our presenting sponsor, Arize. Let's give a shout out to Arize.

[07:10:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25822s) yeah rise next up we have our platinum sponsors oracle sonar work os and exa let's give a shout

[07:10:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25830s) out for them and then two more we have gold sponsors i love them all they're all my favorite

[07:10:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25836s) children can't read them all off right now but thank you so much our silver sponsors

[07:10:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25843s) and to all of our supporting partners who make this possible thank everyone yeah i don't know

[07:10:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25849s) if that was the first person who said they have the most energy, but that person has a lot of

[07:10:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25852s) energy. So before we hop into the next block, one thing that I just wanted to share, and I'm sure a

[07:10:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25859s) lot of you are already feeling this already, is not only is the energy palpable across the room

[07:11:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25866s) in between all of the sessions, but what you realize when you come to AI Engineer is that

[07:11:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25873s) the content is incredible. The speakers that are curated are incredible. The depth by which they

[07:11:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25879s) talk about the work they're doing is incredible. But this is also just surface area that acts as

[07:11:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25885s) a starting point for conversation amongst everyone in the room. And so for me, not only has it been

[07:11:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25890s) incredible to stand in the back of the room at various points in the day and just listen to

[07:11:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25896s) these incredible speakers who are truly living in Edge City, but then to use all of these

[07:11:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25902s) conversations, all these talks as surface area to have conversations with folks. So a few

[07:11:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25908s) conversations that come to mind that I've had throughout the day because of the content. One

[07:11:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25913s) was a conversation with swyx, one of the people behind this incredible event. We were talking

[07:11:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25919s) about just the diffusion gap that exists in enterprise AI right now. And just some fun

[07:12:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25925s) stats for you all. We talked to hundreds of big enterprises at 10X across financial services,

[07:12:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25931s) healthcare, industrials, et cetera. And the way I think about diffusion of AI across these

[07:12:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25938s) organizations is almost in milestones of a race. So the first big milestone at an enterprise is

[07:12:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25945s) just adopting a general purpose LLM. Out of curiosity, of the, let's call it 100 firms we

[07:12:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25951s) talked to, what percentage of those firms do you think have adopted and rolled out an LLM to all

[07:12:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25957s) their employees. Someone screwing out a number. 9%, I think I heard. 17%. So specific. 90%. So

[07:12:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25968s) 90% of the enterprises we work with have rolled out a general purpose LLN. Under that is people

[07:12:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25974s) actually getting trained in how to use the technology, how to actually use these surfaces

[07:12:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25978s) in their work. That's like 60%. Next up is coding agents, agents that are actually used within

[07:13:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25984s) in engineering and product workflows.

[07:13:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25986s) That's around 50% of all the enterprises we've been in.

[07:13:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25990s) And then the final one, where we are truly still day one,

[07:13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25993s) is agents actually working in non-engineering workflows

[07:13:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25998s) in an organization.

[07:13:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=25999s) That is around 5% right now.

[07:13:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26001s) So going back to what I said earlier,

[07:13:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26003s) this community really is Edge City.

[07:13:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26006s) The topics that are being talked about,

[07:13:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26008s) we are going to continue to see those play out

[07:13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26010s) over the next 12, 24, 36 months.

[07:13:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26014s) I've had a variety of conversations like this throughout the day.

[07:13:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26018s) It's a fusion gap, open source versus fine-tuned models,

[07:13:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26021s) how hard it is to hire great AI engineers at scale.

[07:13:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26025s) And so as we go about the rest of today,

[07:13:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26028s) but also as you think about the conference in general,

[07:13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26031s) use the content as a starting point

[07:13:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26033s) to have interesting conversations at the edge.

[07:13:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26036s) With that, I would love to introduce you to our next talk,

[07:14:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26040s) which is with Frank Long, the head of AI at Coatue.

[07:14:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akEqiXFo3GM&t=26043s) He's gonna be talking about a hedge fund as a function. Let's welcome Frank