Copyright Variety
South by Southwest will host more than 250 sessions for the festival’s 40th anniversary. The next edition of the technology and arts festival — slated for March 12 to March 18, 2026, in Austin, Texas — will cover topics like AI, the creator economy, psychology of marketing, future of scent branding, DNA and the dark genome, how world peace is global health and designing for societal shifts. “This year, one theme stuck out above the rest: humans,” Greg Rosenbaum, SXSW’s SVP of programming, said in a statement. “Across all of our tracks — Tech & AI, Cities & Climate, Creator Economy, Culture, Design, and more — session submissions asked the fundamental question, ‘how does this impact humans and humanity?’” He continued, “From these submissions, our programming team curated a broad collection of sessions to answer that question and many more. Whether it’s your first or your 40th time at SXSW, you don’t want to miss out.” The topics for the sessions were selected from SXSW’s PanelPicker submissions, a community-led platform that allowed festivalgoers to select what sessions are programmed at the conferences. Topics on AI dominated as the most popular submission with branding and marketing, healthcare innovations and mental wellness trailing behind. From the most popular topics in this year’s PanelPicker submissions, a few of the sessions include: Additional keynote speakers, featured sessions and PanelPicker sessions will be announced in the coming weeks. Penske Media Corporation, Variety’s parent company, is a shareholder of SXSW.
