An open, discussion-driven meetup for people exploring AI in real projects — software, startups, design, research, and the human implications we're all walking into.
AAIC has been running since 2024, hosted across central Auckland. Members come from local startups, agencies, enterprises, and universities — and stay because the discussion is good.
How sites get built, how they get found, and how the tooling around design and development is changing month to month — AEO, agentic discovery, and AI-assisted dev.
How AI is reshaping every stage of the job hunt — from the CV that gets written, to the screening system that reads it, to the interview on the other side, to the market candidates are landing in.
We keep the format light on purpose. The talks are short so the discussion has room to actually happen. Come for the topic — stay because someone said something that landed.
Arrive, grab a drink, find someone you haven't met.
A short intro to tonight's topic — 5–10 minutes, no slides if we can help it.
The main event. Questions, demos, war stories, half-finished ideas welcome.
Smaller circles form around whatever struck a nerve.
Usually next door. The best conversations happen here.
Five rules, loosely held. Each one pulls toward signal over noise. This is not a pitch night. Not a course.
No pitch decks. We talk, argue, and think together.
Real applications, not press cycles.
Dev, business, design, research, art — in one room.
Expert-respectful. Questions welcome at every level.
Social and creative dimensions are part of the work.
Honestly the first AI event I've been to in Auckland where nobody was trying to sell me anything.
I came with one question about RAG and left with a list of evals I'd never have thought to write.
Cross-disciplinary in a way most meetups aren't. Designers and researchers were actually in the room.
A curated rotation of work shipped by AAIC members — local startups, indie projects, research, civic tools. Submit yours via Meetup.
A community-led tool for indexing and searching whaikōrero recordings, with whānau-controlled access. Built with on-device transcription so audio never leaves the marae.
An open-source harness for shipping LLM evals alongside your tests. Used by three Auckland startups in production. Sponsored by a recent AAIC working group.
Generative urban-planning sketches from a single text brief, anchored to real Auckland zoning data. A research-led collaboration between AUT and a local architecture studio.
An ambient assistant for neurodivergent founders — manages calendar load, drafts replies in your voice, and refuses to interrupt. Born from an AAIC discussion night.
A bilingual conversational tutor for Te Reo learners, co-designed with native speakers. Tuned to refuse rather than hallucinate when uncertain about kupu.
Offline-first voice-to-knowledge tool for tradespeople. Captures site walks, transcribes locally, and syncs into a searchable team brain when back on wifi.
Still curious? Drop a message via Meetup — an organizer will reply.
No. The room is intentionally cross-disciplinary — designers, founders, researchers, students, business leaders, artists. If you're thinking seriously about AI, you belong.
No. We don't do pitch decks, recruiting drives, or vendor demos disguised as talks. If you want to share a project, share what you learned building it.
No — currently, our sessions are completely free to attend.
Yes — we curate sessions from member suggestions. Drop a note via the Meetup page or DM an organizer.
Selectively. The open discussion is off-the-record by default; framing talks and demos may be recorded with consent and posted under Resources.
We're always open to new venue partners across central Auckland. Get in touch via Meetup.
The room is open. Bring a question, a project, or just your curiosity.
Join AAIC on Meetup ↗