All Six Themes At This Year's SXSW London, Explained

There’s a lot happening at SXSW London 2026.

We've been building a programme featuring 800+ speakers, 200+ music acts and 100+ films. There are also roundtables, mentor sessions, Q&As, meet-ups and workshops.

No need to feel overwhelmed.

We’ve boiled the hundreds of talks on offer down into six essential themes. Below, Head of Conference for SXSW London, Katarina Sherling, breaks down each of the themes you can look forward to hearing at this year’s action packed and insightful roster of meaningful discussions, panels and networking opportunities. Over to Kat.

SXSW London: Hi Kat. We have six themes this year. What are they?

The first theme is AI as The New Power Structures. What we’re trying to say here is that AI reshapes economies, governance and our daily life. When you look at how the world runs these days, it’s not just politicians who are at the helm of the world order, it’s actually big tech companies. In many ways, they are more powerful than the politicians themselves. Every couple of months there’s one big tech company in the news. That’s one side of things. The other is that when you look at daily life, everything is based on an algorithm and powered by AI. In our workspaces, we have AI co-workers we use to make tasks we wouldn’t enjoy much faster.

The second theme is Living Longer, Living Better. Tell us about that.

It depends on where you live in the world, but with the advancements in AI being used in drug discovery, DNA sequencing and genomics, they allow us to live our life longer with a higher quality of life. So there will be sessions across multiple tracks looking at why do we actually live longer and what does it mean for society? If we’re all living until 100 years old, what does that actually mean for the world? We’re also have sessions looking at longevity justice. Not everyone has access to the technology or the medicines. How fair and unfair it is depends on where you are in the world. We’re also covering the GLP-1s and all sorts of weight loss drugs.

Both themes touch on how what's happening in the world right now will affect us not only on a societal basis, but economically too, with politics wrapped into it.

Exactly. For us there are a lot of sessions that cover what we’re calling Practical Optimism. With everything that is happening in the world right now, with different wars and environmental catastrophes, we don’t want to just talk about how bad it is. We want to make sure that we bring industry leaders from different industries and sectors to talk about the solutions that spark hope.

What’s the third theme?

Society Rewired regards the fundamental systems that are shaping our world: anything from politics, media, new media, trust in government and governance. This will be where we’re talking about the inequalities of new media, investigative journalism, government and policy making, and there will be sessions on how you know what responsibilities politicians have when it comes to making those policies, whether it is around AR, education, drugs, access, accountability, etc.

What’s theme four?

Earlier we said that we can't really function without AI, but it's important to take a step back and explore whether Culture Can Save Humanity through nightlife, painting and music. It's all about the culture that brings us joy in our Screen, Story and Sound, Design and London 2050 tracks.

Conversely, the fifth theme is all about how to create content and/or operate a business that actually connects with humans in an age of like algorithms. Is that right?

Yes, our fifth theme is Creativity in the Algorithmic Age. When you look at your Instagram feed, TikTok, LinkedIn, whatever platform it is, it's impacted by the algorithm. The news most people see is often by creators on social media, not necessarily journalists. It's very important for ad agencies and brands to see how they can break through the algorithm to authentically push the message to their audience so human storytelling can thrive.

Right.

And the sixth theme, which is probably one of my favourite ones, is Futurism In Practice. I think we described it internally, as, “just imagine you were living in a Star Trek”. This is where we’re looking into robotics, space travel, and how technologies are transforming the physical world.

What could people gather about the state of the world from these six themes?

Things are happening so much faster right now with AI, unlike the industrial revolution in the past where it was slower and people had more time to prepare for it. It felt like an overnight revelation. Businesses, governments and society are now looking at how we retrain the workforce, how we look at the businesses from different angles. It is scary, but also very exciting at the same time. It really depends less on the technology itself but more on the choices that people will make. We'll have panels where we have industry experts discussing the intersection of different industries: how science and space impacts creating scripts for movies, for instance. There'll be lots of unexpected pairings to look forward to.

Beside the conference side, what else can people expect?

There is so much throughout the day. We have our career conference programme from Monday June 1 to Monday June 6, where people can attend panels, talks, interviews and other sessions.

Attendees can actually get involved in conversation.

We have around 80 round tables covering all of the topics that will be covered in the conference programme in a more intimate setup where people can share their views and chat amongst themselves, do some networking. There are hundreds of mentor sessions as well, where attendees can meet and book a time with either one of our speakers or any of the music or screen leaders.

There’s “Ask Me Anything” style open mic Q&A's with our headline speakers plus various workshops and experiences and longer sessions on anything from how to code your next website to creative writing classes. It starts at 10am and you can keep going until 4am.

What's the one talk you're most excited for?

The talk on techno feudalism. It’s one of the bigger topics on our main stage. We'll be asking the hard questions when it comes to who holds the power. Is it tech companies or politicians?

Thanks Kat.

Join us at SXSW London from June 1-6 for a week of conference talks covering AI as The New Power Structures, Living Longer, Living Better, Society Rewired, Culture Can Save Humanity, Creativity in the Algorithmic Age and Futurism in Practice. Grab passes here.