Fast Company Innovation Festival 2026

The Fast Company Innovation Festival returns to New York with a wide-angle view of how ideas move from creative ambition into operating reality. The four-day program crosses technology, design, media, retail, leadership, and culture instead of treating innovation as a single industry or job function.

That range is the reason to have this one on the radar. The most useful signals often appear where disciplines overlap: infrastructure decisions shape customer experience, design choices change distribution, and leadership systems determine whether a promising experiment becomes a repeatable capability. Fast Company builds the festival around those intersections.

What the event is built around

• How major companies are turning emerging technology into products and operating systems
• Leadership decisions behind transformation, culture, and organizational change
• Design, storytelling, and brand as strategic business tools
• The next phase of AI infrastructure and enterprise adoption
• Fast Tracks, workshops, and behind-the-scenes visits across New York

Who should have it on the radar

The festival is relevant to founders, executives, product and design leaders, marketers, investors, and operators who want to compare how different industries are responding to the same technological and cultural pressure. The mix of main-stage sessions and smaller experiences gives attendees several ways to build a useful agenda.

What to watch

The 2026 speaker roster includes leaders from Qualcomm, CoreWeave, Forum AI, Walmart U.S., Nike, and Girls Who Code. Watch for the gap between companies using innovation as a marketing label and those changing the way decisions, products, and customer relationships actually work.

Event details

• Dates: 2026-09-14–2026-09-17
• Time: Programming varies by day
• Location: Convene, 225 Liberty St, New York, NY
• Format: Conference
• Register: Official event page

Registration requirements, pricing, capacity, and program details can change. Use the official registration page for the latest information from the organizer.