Free AI events in Chicago
You don't have to spend a dollar to plug into Chicago's AI scene. Every free AI event in the city, gathered in one place and verified daily: meetups, workshops, hackathons, and talks with no ticket price.
Sep
9
Wed
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
AI Assisted Engineering Series: Planning
by Chicago ML
Chicago ML convenes a Loop-area planning session for a new hands-on series on using AI tools in engineering workflows and application development.
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT
Chicago | How Businesses Use AI
Ferris & Coby Claude Community Events Chicago
A Chicago panel for owners and operators on choosing AI use cases that earn their cost, with candid examples, a live workflow demonstration and peer discussion.
Sep
15
Tue
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM CDT
Caught on Camera: Vision AI on the Warehouse Floor
1111 W 22nd Streetby Arvist
Arvist, Hanwha Vision and PLT host a Chicago demonstration of vision-AI quality control in a freight warehouse, including live footage-to-claims workflows and discussion of deploying the systems in operating facilities.
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Automation, MCP, and Vibe Coding: What Gets Built vs. What Gets Shipped
Aon Centerby Digital Delivery Chicago
Digital Delivery Chicago convenes a practical AI-adoption meetup on automation, MCP and vibe coding, focusing on the difference between promising prototypes and tools teams actually put into use.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
How Does AI Impact the Way We Learn?
Pilot Project Brewing - Logan Squareby Edtech Institute of Chicago
Edtech Institute of Chicago launches its Future of Learning meetup series with a hands-on evening on AI and learning research, practical opportunities and open questions.
Sep
16
Wed
6:00 PM – 6:00 PM CDT
revAlation Chicago 2026
The Old Post Officeby Alation
Alation's two-day Chicago conference for data and AI leaders and practitioners focuses on governed AI, production agents, data quality and peer exchange.
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM CDT
Where is AI in 2026 and Where is it Going?
Skokie Public Libraryby AI Safety Awareness Group Chicago
A free, beginner-friendly Skokie workshop on current AI systems, their likely effects on work and society, and the risks that deserve public attention.
Sep
17
Thu
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
AI & Data Summit Chicago
Convene, 311 West Monroeby IDC
IDC's one-day Chicago summit convenes senior technology and business leaders on scaling enterprise AI, trusted data, governance and agentic AI risk.
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM CDT
September 2026 Meetup: Chicago AI Engineering Group
nvisia Conference Centerby Chicago AI Engineering Group
An in-person Chicago AI Engineering Group meetup for local practitioners, with networking followed by a technical presentation at the nvisia Conference Center.
Sep
22
Tue
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
SievoFriends Chicago
320 S Canal Stby Sievo
A full-day Chicago conference for procurement and finance leaders examining how data, AI and peer benchmarks can drive measurable procurement results through keynotes, hands-on sessions and peer roundtables.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Building AI Agents That Teams Can Trust: 6th Chicago Meetup
by The Test Tribe
A Chicago meetup on the engineering and governance choices involved in moving from individual AI agents to reliable multi-agent systems, with a practitioner talk and peer exchange.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Your Agent Hasn't Faced Adversity Yet!
TeamWorking by TechNexusby Agent Loop Chicago
Agent Loop Chicago hosts a Loop meetup on the realities of agent failure, resilience and production-oriented AI-agent engineering.
Sep
23
Wed
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT
Chicago: Building Apps with Lakebase
Analytics8by Databricks Community Meetup Chicago
A Chicago Databricks Community Meetup featuring a live Lakebase demo and practical discussion of building AI-native applications with the Databricks data platform.
5:30 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
From Root Cause to AI Agents: Elastic & Gigamon in Action
Improving Chicagoby Elastic Chicago User Group
The Elastic Chicago User Group and Gigamon present an in-person meetup on evidence-based root-cause analysis and building AI agents with Elastic skills, workflows and Agent Builder.
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT
Chicago | Claude for Finance
Ferris & Coby Claude Community Events Chicago
A free Loop gathering for finance practitioners sharing real AI workflows, live demonstrations, governance concerns and candid lessons from attempts that did not work.
Sep
24
Thu
Sep
30
Wed
Oct
1
Thu
Oct
5
Mon
8:00 AM – 5:30 PM CDT
Snowflake World Tour 2026: Chicago
Hyatt Regency Chicagoby Snowflake
Snowflake's free one-day Chicago stop, themed Making AI Real for Business, with three tracks on modernizing data infrastructure, preparing governed data for AI, and building trustworthy AI agents on business data.
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
2026 North American Semarchy Summit: Chicago
The Westin Chicago River Northby Semarchy
A two-day Chicago summit for data leaders and practitioners exploring trusted data, data products, AI, DataOps and the operational foundations needed to scale AI work.
Oct
6
Tue
8:30 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
ServiceNow World Forum Chicago 2026
McCormick Place, Lakeside Centerby ServiceNow
A one-day, in-person ServiceNow forum at McCormick Place for business and technology practitioners exploring applied AI, agent building, workflow data and enterprise automation.
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CDT
Schmidt AI in Science Speaker Series: Meng Jiang (Notre Dame)
John Crerar Library, University of Chicagoby University of Chicago Data Science Institute
A free public talk at the University of Chicago's John Crerar Library from Notre Dame computer scientist Meng Jiang, part of the weekly Schmidt AI in Science series on AI-driven work across the physical and biological sciences.
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Tech Pulse 2030 Chicago: October Session
Discovery Partners Instituteby AI 2030 | Responsible AI Chicago
A free Chicago meetup for practitioners, entrepreneurs and community leaders examining responsible AI and the real-world impact of emerging technology, followed by local networking.
Oct
8
Thu
5:30 PM – 8:30 PM CDT
Chicago Physical AI Workshop and Meetup
UIC Student Center Eastby Voxel51
A Chicago evening of lightning talks and hands-on practice for people working in computer vision, machine learning and physical AI, co-presented by Voxel51 and Nebius at UIC.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Artificial Intelligence: Sam Basu
Aon Centerby Chicago Cloud Computing Meetup Group
A Chicago Cloud Computing Meetup technical session with Sam Basu on artificial intelligence, for local developers interested in current AI practice and engineering discussion.
Oct
13
Tue
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CDT
Solve26 Chicago
Hyatt Regency O'Hareby eGain
A free two-day eGain conference at Hyatt Regency O'Hare on generative AI, agentic AI and trusted knowledge foundations for customer-service and enterprise automation teams.
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CDT
Schmidt AI in Science Speaker Series: Doug Brinkerhoff (University of Montana)
John Crerar Library, University of Chicagoby University of Chicago Data Science Institute
A free talk at UChicago on why a machine learning glacier flow emulator ended up back as a PDE solver, covering GPU-accelerated multigrid methods and ML-inspired transport operators in scientific computing.
Oct
19
Mon
Oct
20
Tue
Oct
27
Tue
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CDT
Schmidt AI in Science Speaker Series: Ella King (Northwestern)
John Crerar Library, University of Chicagoby University of Chicago Data Science Institute
A free UChicago talk from Northwestern engineer Ella King, whose work applies AI methods to designing dynamic, self-correcting materials, part of the weekly Schmidt AI in Science series.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT
Tiller: Structure, Gates, and State for Human + Agent Teams
TeamWorking by TechNexusby Agent Loop Chicago
An Agent Loop Chicago technical meetup on structuring collaborative software development between people and AI agents, with a presentation from Made In Tandem's JC Grubbs.
Oct
28
Wed
Nov
3
Tue
Nov
5
Thu
Nov
17
Tue