AI Engineer Singapore 2026

How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to AIE Singapore

Notes, prep questions, and an email draft you can use. Much better than "it seemed interesting."

May 15-17, 2026Capitol Kempinski Hotel2,000+ Engineers & Builders
Step 01

The Prep

Before you ask for budget, figure out what kind of ask this is. A clean one, a weak one, or one that is obviously going to get pushback.

Does your org have budget for professional development or conferences?
Do you have any major deadlines on or around May 15-17?
Will attending require you to push any project deadlines?
Can your team handle you being away for 2-3 days?
Have you identified specific tracks or topics that align with your team's goals?
0/5 answered

Answer Step 1 to personalize the pitch

5 answers left. Finish Step 1 and the letter gets more specific.

Step 02

Your Talking Points

You are not asking for a few days away from your desk. You are asking for a small spend with a real return. That is the frame.

A year is a long time right now
A lot changes in a year: tooling, eval habits, agent patterns, and all the annoying operational details nobody puts in a blog post. What makes this useful is that people tend to show the work, including what went wrong. That is the part you can actually bring back.
One good idea can pay for the trip
If you come back with one pattern that saves a week of engineering time, keeps something from flaking out in production, or cuts wasteful spend, the trip has probably paid for itself. It does not need to change the roadmap to be worth it.
It is also a hiring room
Two thousand technical people in one place is not nothing. Even if you are not hiring this quarter, you still meet future candidates, possible partners, and people who know who is good before any of that hits LinkedIn.
The tracks map to real team problems
Software, Design, Robotics + Foundation Models, and Leadership. You do not need all four to matter. You need one of them to line up cleanly with a problem your team already has, so the trip looks like problem-solving instead of general self-improvement.
This is narrower than a normal AI conference
That matters. If you want broad futurism, there are cheaper places to get it. If you want notes from people who are shipping things and dealing with the same production mess everyone else is, this is a better bet.
You usually come back sharper than you left
A couple of days around people who are deep in the work usually resets your bar a little. You come back with better examples, better questions, and a clearer sense of what only sounds good in a demo.
The Conference

Four tracks, all pretty practical

Pick the part that lines up with your team's work. If you cannot name that part yet, Step 1 should still be yellow.

⚡

Software

Agents, MCP, evals, context management, inference costs, and the usual production headaches. This track is for people trying to make AI systems work reliably, not just demo well.

🎨

Design

Voice, video, image, music, generative UI, and the weird edge cases that show up when the interface is no longer deterministic.

🤖

Robotics + Foundation Models

Vision-language-action models, robot control loops, manipulation, and what breaks when models leave the browser and touch the world.

For CTOs, VPs of AI & Founders🏛

Leadership Track

For people dealing with headcount, org structure, and the very real question of what an AI-heavy team should look like in practice.

General Admission

Conference Ticket

Access to the Software, Design, and Robotics tracks, plus the workshops and community events.
Early Bird Now
Leadership

Leadership Ticket

Everything in the regular ticket, plus the Leadership track and the smaller discussions around hiring and org design.
Early Bird Now
Step 03

Do Your Homework

This is the difference between "can I go?" and "here is why this is worth paying for." Have the answers before you write the email.

1
What are your company's top goals or OKRs this year?
2
What are your team's specific goals or priorities this quarter?
3
Which of those goals matters most to your boss / the person approving this expense?
4
What technical or organizational challenges does your team expect to face this year?
5
How might leveling up on AI engineering directly address those challenges?
6
Which of the four tracks (Software, Design, Robotics, Leadership) maps best to your team's needs?
7
What's the total cost -- ticket, flights, hotel, meals? (Have real numbers ready.)
Step 04

The Email

Fill in the gaps, cut anything you do not need, and send something that sounds like you wrote it.

compose -- [email protected]

Hey [Boss Name],

AI Engineer Singapore is on May 15-17, and I'd like to attend on behalf of [Your Company]. It's at the Capitol Kempinski Hotel, the first AI Engineer event in Asia.

The reason I want this one, specifically, is that it skews technical. It is not a broad "future of AI" conference. Most sessions are about what people built, what broke, and what they changed to make it work. Around 2,000 engineers, founders, and product people are expected to be there.

The conference is split into Software, Design, Robotics + Foundation Models, and Leadership. I would likely spend most of my time in the [Software / Design / Robotics] track, especially around [specific topics].

This would directly help my work as a [Your Title].

I am also happy to do a short recap for the team so the trip is useful beyond just me.

There is also a recruiting angle here. With that many builders in one place, it is a good chance to meet potential hires and useful contacts.

Here is the rough cost:

Conference Ticket (Early Bird)$XXX
Flights$XXX
Hotel (2-3 nights)$XXX
Meals & Transport$XXX
Estimated Total$X,XXX

More info at ai.engineer/singapore.

I think the trip would pay for itself if I come back with even one or two ideas we can use to help [Your Company] move faster or make better decisions.

Happy to talk it through if useful.

-- [Your Name]

P.S. If this feels more useful as a team trip than a solo one, there are community events around the conference as well.

Maybe see you in Singapore 🇸🇬

May 15-17, 2026 · Capitol Kempinski Hotel · 2,000+ builders

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