Sept 29 Connect
An evening inside one of Cambridge’s iconic natural history museums with customers, partners, founders, engineers and industry leaders. The conversations that set up the rest of the week.
Topsort Fall update 2026
Commerce—Evolved
Honest conversations about what happens when AI, media, search and the way companies operate all start converging.
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evolve·expand·explore·
Sept 30 Define
The main day. We open by naming where this is going, then spend the morning arguing about it with people from outside Topsort. In the afternoon we show what we built and why it answers the question.
Oct 01 Build
The technical day. One deep dive into what sits underneath all of it, then you take over: three tracks, small circles, real problems, no slides. Then Boston, on us, in the afternoon.
/Agenda
Not a trade show and not a booth floor. A room of operators, engineers and executives who are building this, arguing about where it goes.
Tuesday, September 29 Connect
- 6:00PM
Welcome reception
An evening inside one of Cambridge's iconic natural history museums. No stage and no agenda, just the conversations that set up the rest of the week.
Wednesday, September 30 Define
- 9:00AM
Doors open, light breakfast
- 9:30AM
Opening: what an AI company for commerce actually looks like
Retail media was just the beginning. The category is turning into commerce itself.
- 10:15AM
Keynote: Constantinos Daskalakis, MIT
Game theory, mechanism design and the complexity of equilibria: the mathematics underneath every auction ever run. One of the most cited theoretical computer scientists working today, on what all of this means for commerce.
- 11:00AM
Break and live demo stations
- 11:30AM
Fireside: What it costs a retailer to become a technology company
Juan Diego Valdés, Falabella. Retailers are being asked to behave like technology companies while still running the business that pays for everything. What that actually costs, and how anything new gets approved across several countries and teams.
- 12:00PM
Fireside conversation
Speaker to be announced.
- 12:30PM
Lunch
- 1:30PM
Product launches and live demos
Ad servers are dead, and something has to replace the infrastructure the last decade was built on. Then what happens when campaigns build themselves, running live on real workflows.
- 3:30PM
Closing: What Happens Next
- 4:00PM
Close
Thursday, October 1 Build
- 9:30AM
Doors open, light breakfast
- 10:00AM
Technical deep dive: retrieval
If search is dying, retrieval is what still matters. What that means when the catalogue is a hundred million items rather than a demo dataset.
- 11:00AM
Working sessions, three tracks
The dashboard is disappearing. Your next ad operator might be an agent. Build vs buy is the wrong question. Small circles, real problems, no slides.
- 12:25PM
What each room concluded
- 1:00PM
Lunch
Agenda in progress, times and sessions may change.
Who's in the room
Retailers, marketplaces, delivery platforms, travel, fintech and publishers from around the world. Engineering and product leaders who have shipped this, executives deciding whether to, and agencies working out what a searchless ad world means for their clients.
Boston
The main event runs at a venue in Somerville. We will also host a reception at one of Cambridge’s iconic natural history museums. Full travel details go out with your confirmation.
Greetings from Boston, MA
Boston
2026
Mass.
Greetings from Boston,
For those asking when we’d all be in the same room again: it’s happening! Topsort's new event is coming to our Hub in Somerville, Boston on Sept 29 – Oct 1, 2026and we are inside of an old chocolate factory (literally)!
Three days of commerce, retail media, and the people building both.
Expect fewer slides and more conversation. Product in the open, ideas that aren't finished yet, and a long table where merchants, advertisers, and engineers can finally compare notes.
To join: , and let us know you're coming.
P.S. Bring a question you haven't been able to answer. Somebody in the room probably has.
P.S. This is a cute photo of us playing at Standford last year!
Topsort Team
Boston
2026
Mass.
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Want to be part of the program?
If you have a point of view on any of the arguments above, we'd rather hear from you than talk at you. Tell us what you'd argue and we'll come back to you.