Is Elevate worth attending if you don’t use monday.com? The honest answer.
- You don’t need to be a monday.com customer to attend Elevate ’26
- Elevate is structured as an AI-for-work conference, not a product conference
- Most of what’s on the agenda is organized around challenges professionals are navigating right now, not around a specific tool
- You can build a full two-day agenda without attending a single product demo
The question comes up a lot: “Is Elevate only for monday.com customers?”
It’s a fair one. When a software company hosts a conference, the assumption is that it’s built for its users, keynotes about the product roadmap, sessions about specific features, and a floor full of customers comparing notes on the same platform. And yes, some of that is here too.
But Elevate is built around something broader: AI for work, and the questions every operations leader, PMO director, marketing team, and IT org is trying to answer right now. How do I work with AI effectively? What does this shift actually mean for my team? What are the organizations ahead of this curve doing differently?
Of course, if you are a monday.com customer, there’s plenty here for you too. But the agenda runs deep enough that you could fill two full days without touching a single product session, and walk away with as much as anyone in the room.
Those questions don’t belong to any single platform. And Elevate ’26, October 28-29 at the Javits Center in New York, is built to answer them.
What is Elevate, actually?
Elevate is monday.com’s flagship annual conference. In 2026, it’s bringing together 5,000+ professionals from more than 200 industries for two days of sessions, hands-on learning, and structured networking focused on one central idea: AI is shrinking the distance between vision and execution. For ambitious leaders and practitioners, the constraints that used to define what was possible, time, capacity, resources, are no longer fixed.
The agenda is organized by function and intent, not by product feature. Tracks are built for how people actually work: marketing and sales, IT and operations, PMO, and broad-audience sessions open to everyone. The goal is for every attendee to leave with something they can act on, regardless of what tools their team uses.
And unlike most professional conferences, which are built for a single function or industry, Elevate draws from everywhere. Healthcare, financial services, media, government, retail, tech; the range is real. That matters because the AI challenges a PMO director at a hospital is navigating aren’t so different from the ones a marketing ops lead at a consumer brand is dealing with. The specific tools and contexts differ. The underlying questions don’t.
Who’s speaking at Elevate ’26?
The speaker lineup is the clearest signal that this isn’t a product user conference. Confirmed and in-progress speakers include leaders from Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, Meta, LinkedIn, FedEx, and MIT. A major keynote speaker is also planned and will be announced separately.
A few worth calling out specifically:
Vint Cerf, widely credited as a founding architect of the internet, is speaking in a fireside session titled “In conversation: AI accountability for each person in any organization.” Cerf co-developed the TCP/IP protocols that became the foundation of the internet as we know it. The session description says it all: “What does it mean to be accountable when AI is doing the work? Two leaders, whose careers span some of the most consequential technological shifts of our time, sit down for an unscripted conversation about what responsibility, ownership, and leadership look like in the age of AI.” Not a panel with talking points. An actual conversation.
Cerf co-invented TCP/IP, the protocol that made the internet work. His career has been defined by building infrastructure for what comes next. At Elevate, he turns that lens on agentic AI and accountability.
Rafi Nulman, Director of AI Transformation at Meta, is on a panel called “Career advancement: Turning AI into your professional edge.” The session explores how to become the go-to person in any organization, rise above the hype, and build skills and habits that create a tangible career advantage in a rapidly changing workplace. Practical, not abstract, and relevant to anyone in the room regardless of what software they use.
Matt Derella, SVP Marketing at LinkedIn (and former Chief Customer Officer at X) is leading a guest session on how AI is reshaping brand, content, and go-to-market. Relevant to every marketer in attendance.
Ankita Sharda, Head of AI Consulting and FDE Pursuit Lead at Google, brings a practitioner’s perspective on AI implementation at scale.
These are people shaping how AI intersects with business, leadership, and careers. Their perspectives are worth the trip, whether or not you use monday.com. If that lineup alone has you convinced, you don’t need to read further.
Is the agenda relevant if you’re not a monday.com customer?
Yes. The majority of sessions at Elevate ’26 are built around cross-industry thinking, not platform-specific content.
A few examples of confirmed sessions:
Brings together expert voices from leading enterprises for a real conversation about the human side of the AI shift. Not a product conversation.
Addresses what it means to lead a team when AI agents are part of it. The people and leadership questions this session tackles don’t have clean answers yet, and they don’t depend on which software you use.
Covers how to actually implement AI across an organization responsibly; not in theory, but in practice, from people who’ve done it. Speakers include Lauren Vriens, Founder with F500 AI implementation experience and former VP at Accenture.
A transparent, inside look at what agentic transformation actually involves. monday.com rebuilt its own revenue engine with AI and is sharing exactly how. Even for non-customers, this is a rare look at real implementation.
Features external voices including Jade Bonacolta (major marketing influencer, ex LinkedIn and Google) and Noah Brier (Founder, Alephic) on where AI actually works in marketing and where it doesn’t.
What can non-customers learn from the customer sessions?
This might be the most underrated part of the agenda for non-customers.
One of the confirmed sessions is a customer panel called “AI in action,” featuring Chasity Parker from AMSTI at the University of North Alabama, Luca Santamaria from Opella, and Erik Rasmussen from Black and McDonald. Three practitioners, three industries, one conversation about what AI for work actually looks like when you put it into practice.
For a non-customer, this is exactly the kind of session worth attending. Not a demo, not a roadmap update; real people from real organizations talking about how the shift to AI is changing what their teams do day to day. The challenges they describe, the decisions they’ve had to make, the things they’ve learned, those are universal. They don’t belong to any platform.
The same dynamic plays out across the event. Jeremy Griggs, Director of Program Management at Five9, described it this way:
“We tend to be siloed in our own world, and it’s really good to just get outside of that and hear from other industries, other people in this space that might have a different use case that we could draw inspiration from. Even though we’re in different industries, a lot of people have very similar challenges and problems to solve.”
What does the networking actually look like?
Networking at Elevate is structured differently from a typical conference cocktail hour. There are three main formats worth knowing about.
- Roundtables are roughly 90-person facilitated sessions, grouped by function or industry. A facilitator prompts the conversation, but the real value is peer exchange: what’s working, what’s hard, how others are solving the same problems. Confirmed roundtable facilitators come from SiriusXM, American Express Global Business Travel, Iron Mountain, Regal Cinemas, Sheppard Mullin, and the City of Coral Springs. Roundtables exist for operations, marketing, PMO, IT, people management, sales, and several industry tracks including healthcare, real estate, and government.
- Braindates are a structured peer-matching format where you connect with other attendees one-on-one or in small groups based on shared challenges, interests, or goals. Intentional rather than random.
- General networking across 5,000+ attendees from more than 200 industries. The expo floor, social events, and hallway conversations between sessions are consistently cited as conference highlights; and with that range of industries in the room, the odds of running into someone with a perspective you’ve never encountered before are high.
What do non-customers actually leave with?
A few things that don’t require being a monday.com customer to take home:
A clearer picture of where AI for work is actually going, from the people driving it. Role-specific session learnings from a track built for your function. Practical frameworks from leaders across industries who’ve already made the shift. New peers navigating the same challenges, through roundtables, Braindates, and two full days of hallway conversations. And enough proof and perspective to build a credible internal case for whatever your organization needs to do next.
Two days is a real investment. This one pays back.How is Elevate different from other AI-for-work conferences?
A few things set it apart:
A marketing conference is for marketers. An IT summit is for IT. Elevate pulls from 200+ industries and every major business function, and that breadth is a feature, not a side effect. The person sitting two tables over at a roundtable might be from an industry you’d never cross paths with in your normal work life. And they might have already solved the exact problem that’s been slowing your team down for months. That kind of cross-pollination doesn’t happen at conferences built for a single audience.
Ellen Webb, VP of Shopper Analytics and Insights at PepsiCo, described it well:
“We tend to be siloed in our own world, and it’s really good to just get outside of that and hear from other industries, other people in this space that might have a different use case that we could draw inspiration from. Even though we’re in different industries, a lot of people have very similar challenges and problems to solve.”
Kim Moeller, Director of Contracts and Procurement Operations at the City of Baltimore, experienced it firsthand:
“We tend to be siloed in our own world, and it’s really good to just get outside of that and hear from other industries, other people in this space that might have a different use case that we could draw inspiration from. Even though we’re in different industries, a lot of people have very similar challenges and problems to solve.”
Elevate exists for people who want to stay ahead of how work is changing. The AI shift is already reshaping what teams can accomplish, what leaders are responsible for, and what it means to be indispensable in your role.
If those are the questions on your mind, the conference is worth your time, monday.com customer or not.
Frequently asked questions
-
Do I need to be a monday.com customer to attend Elevate?
No. Elevate is open to anyone. You can register as a professional attending for the AI-for-work content, networking, and learning, regardless of whether you use monday.com.
-
Will I get value if I don’t use monday.com?
es, if you’re attending for the thought leadership, role-based sessions, roundtables, and networking. The majority of the agenda is not product-specific.
-
What are the dates and location for Elevate ’26?
Elevate ’26 takes place October 28-29, 2026 at the Javits Center in New York City. A Pre-conference Certification Day is available on October 27. Elevate EMEA takes place November 24, 2026 at Excel London.
-
What kinds of sessions are available at Elevate?
Elevate ’26 includes keynotes, thought leadership panels, role-based track sessions, masterclasses, roundtables, facilitated networking, live demos, customer stories, and more. The full session list includes 250+ sessions across multiple stages.
-
Are masterclasses available to non-customers?
Masterclasses at Elevate focus on hands-on skills and are available to all registered attendees. Many are monday.com-focused, but the broader learning content, including thought leadership sessions and roundtables, is relevant regardless of which platform you use.
-
How do I register?
Registration for Elevate ’26 is open. You can get tickets at the Elevate registration page.
