Web Summit returns to Lisbon from November 9 to 12. Opening night is at the MEO Arena, and the following three days fill the FIL pavilions across Parque das Nações. More than 70,000 people are expected, which keeps it in the running for the biggest tech conference in Europe.
The crowd is deliberately mixed. Startups exhibit next to big tech, investors sit in on panels with ministers, and the Centre Stage lineup jumps from AI founders to athletes to heads of state in a single afternoon. Some people find that chaotic. Most come back anyway.
AI dominates the 2026 program, along with the question Europe keeps asking itself: can it build its own AI champions, or will it mostly regulate other people’s? Expect that debate on stage and in every bar along the river after dark.
For startups, the value is in the investor meetings and the press room. For everyone else, Web Summit is the quickest way to take the temperature of the European tech scene in four days.