South by Southwest (SXSW) has announced the results of its PanelPicker process, resulting in more than 325 sessions coming to the 2027 innovation, music, and film & TV conferences. SXSW 2027 will take place March 15-21.
PanelPicker is a community-voted application process for speakers to submit their panel ideas and users to show which ones spark the most interest. More than 3,300 proposals were submitted for consideration.
In a press release sharing the results, SXSW listed the most popular topics according to prospective speaker submissions: Tech & AI, Workplace, Brand & Marketing, Health, and Creator Economy. AI was the hottest topic overall, it said, and that included skepticism. Almost a fifth (19 percent) of submissions were about trust and transparency. Community was also a big topic, showing up in 17% of submissions. Workplace topics made up the largest increase compared to submissions for 2026.
“The 2027 PanelPicker submissions signal profound shifts across every industry our event features. We have officially moved past the theoretical hype of artificial intelligence and into a more pragmatic era,” said SVP of programming Greg Rosenbaum in the release.
“The question is no longer what this technology is, but how (or if) it integrates into daily and creative life," Rosenbaum continued. "Equally compelling is the powerful counter-movement, with our community craving authentic human connection, personal wellbeing, and trust. Across health and wellness, creator economy, music, design, lifestyle, film and television, sports and more, everyone is grappling with the balance between innovation and the human experience.”
Of course, there are too many newly announced sessions to list here. Instead, here is a list of session titles highlighted in the release:
Innovation Conference
- How to Break the Playbook, Not the Brand with Brian Siedband of Quality Meats, Eric Kallman of Erich & Kallman, Mark Gross of Highdive, and Vanessa Chi of System 1.
- Physical AI: Autonomous Infrastructure for Smart Cities with Thomas Kiessling of PassiveLogic.
- Creator Labor: Research, Advocacy, and Policy with Avi Gandhi of Creator Access Network, Brooke Duffy of Cornell University, Jeff Barrett of Barrett PR, and Shira Lazar of What’s Trending.
- Design in Tech Report 2027: The Costs and Benefits of AX with John Maeda of GitHub.
- What Grand Theft Auto 6 Stole From Roblox (and Why Brands Should Too) with Charles Hambro of GEEIQ.
- Can AI Cure Cancer? It Depends on the Data with Alicia Zhou of the Cancer Research Institute, Angus Chen of STAT, Ansuman Satpathy of Stanford, and Serge Saxonov of 10x Genomics.
- The Future Is Gothic: Why Innovation Keeps Making Monsters with Juli Rush of St. Mark’s Episcopal School and Brittney Hopgood of CDW.
- Building the Modern Sports Experience with Kevin Cote of Google, Kevin Lopes of ESPN, Kristin Glushon of Nexus Studios, and Matt Mullen of PGA Tour.
- Who Owns What: The State of Startups & Top Trends to Watch with Ashley Neville of Carta.
- The Software/Services Divide Is Done. Meet the New Model—For decades, companies bought software from one place and services from another. AI just collapsed that model. Join IBM's Jonathan Adashek and Code and Theory's Mike Treff—two leaders building this model from opposite sides—for a candid look at what's next, and how to get there first.
- Cheap AI Answers, Expensive Thinking and How to Matter with Melanie Cook of VaynerMedia.
Music Conference
- Leading with Influence: Who Gets to Shape Culture? with Billboard's Leila Cobo, Amazon Music's Phylicia Fant, SpinLab Communications’ John Vlautin and Warner Bailey, founder of Assistants vs. Agents.
- AI Detection: The New Way to Protect Your Music with Rasha Rahman of HumanStandard, Rithik Kundu of Joker Deck Ventures, Soomin Kim of Sony Music, and Turo Pekari of Copyright Delta.
Film & TV Conference
- Building the "Backrooms" Without Losing the Unease with Edward Douglas, VFX Supervisor for Kane Parson's A24 film Backrooms, and Raphael A. Pimentel, Director of Animation at Zoic Studios.
- Behind Every Frame: Women Crafting Film & TV Below the Line with Alexandra Chando of Women in Film & TV Austin, Heather Page of We Are Shine Co, film editor Sandra Adair, and production designer Yvonne Boudreaux.
