Why SaaSBoomi Annual ’26 Became AIBoomi Annual ’26: Choosing Relevance Over Comfort

Eight weeks ago, we announced SaaSBoomi Annual ’26.

At the time, it felt natural. SaaSBoomi has been home to thousands of founders over the years. It is where we have learned together, struggled together, and grown together. It is a name built with trust and lived experience.

But over the weeks that followed, something didn’t sit right with me and the team. 

We found ourselves listening more than talking. In long conversations with founders building from zero, with operators carrying real revenue, real teams, and real pressure, and with people who have attended our events for years, as well as those discovering us for the first time. Across SaaS-native companies and AI-native builders.

And what we heard, again and again, was not noise. It was clarity.

This isn’t a SaaS moment anymore.
This is a SaaS + AI evolution moment.

Founders are not asking how to optimize what they already have. They are asking harder, more uncomfortable questions. 

• Will my product still matter in two years? 
• Do I layer AI on top of what works, or do I rebuild from scratch? 
• How do I evolve without killing the business that pays salaries today? 
• What happens to teams, roles, and identities when the rules of building software are changing under our feet?

Sitting with those conversations, it became clear that calling this year’s flagship event SaaSBoomi Annual would be safe. But it would not be honest.

So we made a call.

SaaSBoomi Annual ’26 is now AIBoomi Annual ’26.

As we planned the program, it also became clear that keeping the SaaSBoomi Annual name while designing an AI-first agenda would create a mismatch. Content drives the room, and the content has already moved.

This is not a rejection of SaaS. SaaS is our foundation. It is where this community was forged and why we exist at all. But AI is no longer a side conversation or a future track. It is reshaping products, architectures, moats, teams, and the inner lives of founders themselves. Holding on to an old name when the moment has clearly shifted would have been us protecting comfort over relevance.

This change did not come from a branding exercise or a sudden impulse. It came from surrendering to reality.

AIBoomi Annual ’26 will stay true to what made this community work in the first place. Relevance over scale. Depth over noise. Real stories over polished theatre. Fewer sessions, more signal. Conversations anchored in product and technology, in transition decisions, in what it actually takes to build in an AI-native world whether you are starting fresh or carrying the weight of an existing business.

If you are building AI-native, this is your room.

If you are a SaaS founder navigating the most consequential shift of your company’s life, this is very much your room too.

Communities do not stay alive by protecting their past. They stay alive by listening and by having the courage to change when the truth asks them to.

You can find the updated details for AIBoomi Annual ’26 here: https://annual.aiboomi.org/

This pivot is not messy. It is alive.