> Markdown version of [/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1957-2026-in-llms-so-far](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1957-2026-in-llms-so-far). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # 2026 in LLMs (so far) - **Date:** Friday, Sep 25, 2026 - **Time:** 17:30–18:00 (30 min) - **Room:** Mainstage - **Event:** World Congress 2026 North America ## Description 2026 has been a wild year for LLMs. The OpenClaw craze kicked things off in January, then we had tokenmaxxing, then the death of tokenmaxxing, US export controls on frontier models, open weight models that compete with that frontier, accidental cyberattacks by the labs’ own models, and a technically credible intervention by the Pope. And the year’s not over yet! Join Simon for a review of everything 2026 has thrown at us so far, what it all means, and how it might shape what you’re building next. ## Speaker ### [Simon Willison](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@simon-willison) Creator of Datasette & Co-creator of Django ## Related talks at this congress - [Red Teaming Your LLM App -- A Hands-On Threat Model You Can Reuse](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1428-red-teaming-your-llm) — Saloni Garg - [No Single Model to Rule Them All: Building Resilient AI Agents Across Open & Closed LLMs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1671-no-single-model-to) — Emmanuel Acheampong - [Understanding LLM Architectures: Inside the Design of Modern Models](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1669-understanding-llm) — Jofia Jose Prakash - [Fast, Cheap, and Accurate: Optimizing LLM Inference with vLLM and Quantization](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1415-fast-cheap-and) — Legare Kerrison, Cedric Clyburn ## Watch remotely [Watch live in the app](https://app.wearedevelopers.com)