As of today, attendee registrations for SaaStr AI Annual 2026 are running a stunning 142.9% of where they were at this exact point last year.
Prices haven’t gone up. That means +42% more leads, more conversations, more potential customers. For the exact same sponsor dollars. That’s the biggest AI + B2B bargain of 2026.
This Year Is Different: It’s All About AI Agents
SaaStr AI Annual 2026 has been completely rebuilt around one question every B2B + AI founder and exec is trying to answer right now: how do I actually deploy AI agents in my business?
Not theoretically. Not as a pilot. For real, in production, this quarter.
The attendees coming in May are not the same people who came to SaaStr three years ago. They’re founders and execs saling from $1M to $1B+ ARRR who are rebuilding their GTM for the AI era. CROs figuring out what a human + agent sales org actually looks like. CTOs shipping AI products to enterprise customers who are skeptical. CMOs rethinking every channel from the ground up.
Every session is from an operator who’s actually done it. We reject the vast majority of submissions. You won’t hear “embrace AI” platitudes — you’ll hear specific frameworks: how to price AI features, how to restructure your CS team when AI handles 60% of tickets, how to build agents for your existing customers instead of abandoning your business to start an AI-native one.
The attendance is up 43% because we followed the money. The buyers at SaaStr AI Annual 2026 are AI-native companies with venture capital and growing revenue, incumbents with dedicated AI transformation budgets, and infrastructure players competing for developer mindshare. That’s where the budget is in 2026, and that’s who’s registering.
The Companies Already In
The sponsors who figured this out early are some of the most interesting companies in B2B + AI right now.
- Diamond Sponsors: Artisan, Google Cloud, Monaco, Replit. These are not companies writing checks out of habit. Replit is at the center of the vibe coding movement. Artisan closed $250K+ on site at SaaStr last year and $1M+ in the months after. They’re back because it worked.
- Platinum Sponsors: Firebolt, Flatfile, G2. Infrastructure and data companies that know their buyers are in this room.
- Also going deep with us this year: Rippling, Lovable, Qualified, People.ai, Salesforce, Vercel, Duplo Cloud (their 6th year — that’s not a coincidence), and Pylon.
Brex’s CRO Sam Blond — now CEO at Monaco — put it plainly: they closed 4 five-figure deals sourced from SaaStr AI Annual in under three weeks. Highest ROI event they’ve measured. They’re back as a Diamond sponsor.
The pattern here is not subtle. The companies sponsoring SaaStr AI Annual 2026 are the ones that have repositioned for AI budgets and are growing. The ones sitting out are often the ones still selling into budgets that don’t exist at the same scale anymore.
What 42% More Attendees Actually Means in Practice
More badge scans at your booth. More conversations. More SQLs in your CRM after the event. More pipeline.
B2B event leads aren’t like digital leads. They close at higher rates. They come with context — the person spent three days in their ICP’s world, had multiple conversations about the exact problems your product solves, and then stopped by your booth. That’s a different kind of lead than someone who clicked a LinkedIn ad at 11pm.
Our quarterly SaaStr AI Days — smaller virtual events — are generating 370-634 leads per sponsor right now. Not badge scans from people wandering by. Actual conversations with decision-makers who have budget and are actively evaluating tools. SaaStr AI Annual in May is that, times ten, in person.
When you layer 42% more volume on top of an already-better close rate, the ROI math gets very good very fast.
The Window
Sponsorship pricing isn’t going up dramatically. It never does. That’s not how we operate.
But the value case gets harder to make internally when the event is six weeks out and obviously going to be huge. Right now you can still walk into your CMO’s office and say “attendance is already 43% ahead of last year and the event is 6 weeks away — we should lock this in.” That’s an easy conversation.
In a few weeks, everyone can see the same data. You’re not early anymore. You’re just on time.
The sponsors who are going to do really well at SaaStr AI Annual 2026 have mostly already signed. There’s still time to be in that group. Not a lot of it.
SaaStr AI Annual 2026. May 12-14. San Mateo County Events Center, SF Bay Area.
Sponsorship inquiries: saastrannual.com/sponsor
