Seoul concentrates most of its AI programme into a handful of very large rooms — COEX, the Shilla, the DDP — with a policy layer running alongside that decides what next year's programme talks about.This page tracks both, with a judgment on each: which ones repay an executive's day, which are really recruiting or research events, and which you can safely follow from a livestream. The list Metis AI keeps for its own clients.
7 events in the next 90 days · 1 more on the horizon · times local to KST (UTC+9) · last updated 5 September 2026
A one-day media-hosted conference gathering executives from global AI firms and Korean industry to discuss AI market trends, policy direction and cross-border cooperation.
Who it’s for: A one-day, media-run conference: good for a fast read on Korean policy direction and market mood, thin on implementation detail.
Seoul city government's flagship global startup festival, themed 'AI Changes Everything' this year, combining tech showcases, investor meetups and keynotes on AI's impact across industries.
Who it’s for: Founders, investors and corporate venture teams. Free and city-run, so signal-to-noise varies — go for the meetings, not the main stage.
A five-day international academic conference on AI agents for scientific research, with parallel oral tracks, poster sessions, a hackathon and an AI art competition, backed by Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT.
Who it’s for: Researchers and R&D leads. Five days in an academic format — corporate attendees should cherry-pick a day rather than commit the week.
ConferencePaidVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Korean Society for Practical AI (AI Friends), with the Korean Science AI Forum
Seoul's third annual smart-city expo, built this year around physical AI — AI running inside autonomous robots, transit systems and public infrastructure rather than software demos on a slide — with exhibitions, forums and the Seoul Smart City Prize ceremony.
Who it’s for: Urban planners, civic-tech and robotics-adjacent people who want to see deployed physical AI at city scale. Free registration, but skip it if you're after enterprise software or LLM-application content — that's not what's on the floor.
A World Bank-organised policy summit with Korea's finance and science ministries on using AI and digital tools to drive jobs and productivity in developing economies; most sessions are invitation-only with select sessions livestreamed.
Who it’s for: Policy and development-finance professionals. Largely invitation-only, so for most people this is a livestream to watch rather than a trip to book.
SummitPrice TBCVerified 31 Aug
Organised by World Bank Group, with Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Science and ICT
An AI+IoT trade show pairing Korean AI hardware and platform vendors with real-world deployment case studies across industry, the public sector and daily life — smaller and more B2B-technical than the flagship AI Expo Korea show.
Who it’s for: Industrial and product engineers scouting AI/IoT integration vendors. Free with online pre-registration, so a walk-through is worth it even without a meeting booked; students are restricted to the final day.
Korea's largest fintech showcase, themed 'Beyond Finance, Into the Future' for 2026, with a strong agentic-AI and AI-governance program alongside digital assets and financial security tracks.
Who it’s for: Financial services professionals with a Korea interest. The free tier makes the exhibition worth a day even if the paid programme is not for you.
ExpoFree + paid tiersVerified 31 Aug
Organised by Financial Services Commission (Korea), with the Global Financial Technology Network
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On the horizon
Confirmed, but more than 90 days out. Worth diarising now if travel or budget approval is involved.
Seoul's AI calendar is unusually top-heavy. COEX in Gangnam hosts most of the large events — AI Summit Seoul, AI EXPO KOREA, AI4Sci — and the pattern is a big exhibition hall plus a keynote track heavy on enterprise case studies. The Shilla and Lotte World Tower take the executive and media-run conferences, and the DDP carries the city government's startup programming. If you are visiting, almost everything worth attending sits in Gangnam or Jung-gu, which makes a two-event week genuinely practical.
Language is the practical constraint. The flagship international events run bilingually with interpretation, but the secondary programme — most meetups, many policy sessions, a good deal of the exhibition floor — is Korean-first, and interpretation is not guaranteed by the fact that a session is listed in English. Ask before you commit a day to it.
There is also a policy layer here with no real equivalent elsewhere in the region: World Bank convenings, ministry-backed forums, Financial Services Commission programming. Much of it is invitation-only with selected sessions livestreamed, which for most professionals makes it something to follow rather than something to attend. On price, the government and city-run events are free and often the most interesting in the calendar, while the flagship conferences are firmly paid and priced for corporate budgets. The most overrated category is the multi-day academic conference with an industry veneer — that format rewards presenters, not attendees. The most underrated is the exhibition floor at Korea Fintech Week, which carries a free tier and a genuinely strong agentic-AI showing.
Why this list exists
Metis AI advises Hong Kong professionals and their teams on putting AI to work — which tools, which workflows, and which of this calendar is genuinely worth a Tuesday evening. The list is a by-product of that advisory work, kept current because clients keep asking for it.
If the harder question is what to actually do with AI inside your own role, that is a conversation rather than a conference.
What the Seoul calendar is actually like
Seoul's AI calendar is unusually top-heavy. COEX in Gangnam hosts most of the large events — AI Summit Seoul, AI EXPO KOREA, AI4Sci — and the pattern is a big exhibition hall plus a keynote track heavy on enterprise case studies. The Shilla and Lotte World Tower take the executive and media-run conferences, and the DDP carries the city government's startup programming. If you are visiting, almost everything worth attending sits in Gangnam or Jung-gu, which makes a two-event week genuinely practical.
Language is the practical constraint. The flagship international events run bilingually with interpretation, but the secondary programme — most meetups, many policy sessions, a good deal of the exhibition floor — is Korean-first, and interpretation is not guaranteed by the fact that a session is listed in English. Ask before you commit a day to it.
There is also a policy layer here with no real equivalent elsewhere in the region: World Bank convenings, ministry-backed forums, Financial Services Commission programming. Much of it is invitation-only with selected sessions livestreamed, which for most professionals makes it something to follow rather than something to attend. On price, the government and city-run events are free and often the most interesting in the calendar, while the flagship conferences are firmly paid and priced for corporate budgets. The most overrated category is the multi-day academic conference with an industry veneer — that format rewards presenters, not attendees. The most underrated is the exhibition floor at Korea Fintech Week, which carries a free tier and a genuinely strong agentic-AI showing.