We have now run AI Underground meetups every week in Dubai since 2024 and every Thursday in Vancouver. Here is what actually works and what we got badly wrong early on.

1. Format Matters More Than Content

The best sessions were not the ones with the most impressive speaker. Open floor conversations and peer reviews outperform keynotes every single time. People come for the conversations, not the presentations.

2. No Pitches is a Feature, Not a Rule

We tried allowing startup pitches early on. Attendance dropped. The moment we enforced no pitches and no vendor demos, attendance went up and the average seniority of attendees increased. High-quality people go where there is no hidden agenda.

3. Non-Technical Attendees Make It Better

Lawyers, marketers, and business people ask the questions engineers are afraid to ask. They bring use cases invisible to people inside the tech world and force builders to explain work in plain language, which usually reveals gaps in thinking.

4. Vancouver and Dubai Are More Similar Than You Think

Different time zones, different cultures, same core problems. Latency. Cost. Hallucinations. Getting stakeholders to trust AI outputs. What works in a Vancouver Thursday session translates directly to Dubai on Friday.

5. Show Up Ready to Contribute

The best sessions happen when members bring one thing they are working on or one question they cannot answer. Come ready to share and you will get ten times more back.