Welcome to the 2026 CNBC AI Forum
CNBC is hosting its second annual AI Forum today in Dallas, Texas, highlighting Dallas’ rise as a hub for enterprise-focused AI development.
Dallas now boasts the largest tech workforce in the country, driven by local universities’ focus on expanding AI and engineering programs, and Texas’ lower cost of living driving an exodus of talent from Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, major industries from telecommunications to healthcare to financial services are embedding AI into existing infrastructure in Dallas or putting down new roots to build AI systems that can solve real-world problems for their customers.
—Ian Thomas
OpenAI Chairman Brett Taylor speaks at CNBC’s AI Forum
Brett Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Sierra, speaks to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 22, 2026.
Oscar Molina CNBC
OpenAI Chairman Brett Taylor is one of the most anticipated speakers at the CNBC AI Forum in Dallas.
Taylor, co-founder of AI startup Sierra, will be joined on stage by Soul Van Beurden. wells fargo Co-CEO and Head of AI for Consumer Banking. We spoke with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin about how organizations can scale AI to create value.
This has been a big week for OpenAI. The company held its annual DevDay developer conference on Tuesday, where the AI company announced a number of new products and developer tools.
This year’s DevDay comes amid intense pressure for OpenAI to address safety concerns after it revealed several incidents where models behaved unintended.
—Colleen McCann
Latest information on AI regulations
From center left, U.S. President Donald Trump, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson from Louisiana, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speak to media members after a meeting with technology company executives on artificial intelligence at the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, September 29, 2026.
Tierney L. Cross | Bloomberg | Getty Images
At last year’s CNBC AI Forum in Nashville, Sen. Marsha Blackburn opened the event by pushing for federal regulation of AI, saying she was increasingly concerned about safety and privacy.
But a year later, no such federal regulations have emerged, even as instances of agent-driven attacks increase and leading researchers warn of serious implications for humanity.
With several technology industry leaders in attendance at the White House this week, US President Donald Trump told reporters there was “a tremendous amount of self-regulation” coming from the AI industry. President Trump also continued to insist that the government will not halt AI development.
“There’s a belief that there needs to be a lot of self-regulation, and there’s automatic regulation with the Department of Justice and the FBI and others,” he told reporters after an afternoon lunch surrounded by CEOs. “But self-regulation is very important.”
—Ian Thomas
