What’s the most exciting thing in tech today?
At London Tech Week (8-10th June 2026), I hit the floor at Olympia and asked founders, executives, and technologists the question: what is the most exciting thing in tech today?
AI is everywhere – and that’s just the beginning
Walk the floor at any tech event right now, and I’ll guarantee you’ll not leave it without hearing the word AI. AI has been a buzzword for a few years, but now the conversations aren’t just enthusiastic about what the tech might do, but about the vast potential that it unlocks. AI is moving from being used because a company wants to say they have AI to something where people are using it to prove real, measurable, and cost-efficient outcomes.
Agentic workflows, said Mick McNeil, CEO and Founder of Deliverance AI, are one of the most exciting things he believes is in tech today. The idea that AI can handle the repetitive, draining parts of work – the boring stuff – and free people up to focus on what they actually care about, such as Creativity. Strategy. Human connection – the fun stuff. The future isn’t AI replacing people. The future is a place where AI absorbs the daily grind so people can do more of what matters.
It seems that AI isn’t just a way to make workflows faster and more attractive; it is also key to democratising tech, creating a more bustling industry. There was a real sense that the barrier to entry is falling so that people without deep technical backgrounds can now get their hands dirty in ways that weren’t possible before. This is then enabling creative thinkers, domain experts, and people with lived experiences to enter the industry and hit the ground running. It is this democratisation of tech, via AI, that Dr Ailish McLaughlin, Solutions Lead at Unlikely AI, finds the most exciting – the field of opportunity is growing, and she is not alone in considering this to be one of the most exciting things happening right now.
As for the ceiling? Nobody seems to think we’ve found it yet. The pace of progress over the last two years alone has been staggering, and the consensus is that what’s coming in the next five to 10 years will dwarf what we’ve already seen. AI is increasingly described not just as a useful tool, but as a foundational pillar of a new industrial era. Reshaping how humans work, research, and interact with technology at every level.
When AI gets a body
If we move away from AI in the Cloud, the other notably exciting frontier in tech is AI in the physical world. Or physical AI. This is where AI and robotics collide.
The argument for physical AI is that for AI to be truly transformative, it eventually needs to do more than just think. It needs to act. It needs to reach out, handle objects, navigate spaces, and interact with the real world in meaningful ways. Software platforms that make robots easier to programme are opening up that possibility to a much broader range of developers and businesses, and the investment is following.
Within the robotics ecosystem, a growing number of companies are building applications that would have seemed far-fetched just a few years ago. For those in the space, the current boom feels like only the beginning of something much more structural. The most visible sign of that physical AI are already steadily encroaching in our daily lives: self-driving taxis, cobots, and surgical robots, are just a few examples of physical AI. These real-world applications have slowly been creeping into the world, making the physical presence of AI very real.
Beyond the algorithm
However, as humans, despite all the tech around us, we are, for the most part, sociable creatures, and so for many other people, the most exciting thing in tech was a fundamental building block in humanity, and that was connection. Tech connections, yes, but human contacts.
London Tech Week isn’t only about the technology, though it is the reason scores of people show up day after day and year after year. But the show is also about the people, the serendipitous conversations, and the partnerships that could take innovative ideas into entirely new markets. In a world that is increasingly shaped by algorithms, the human touch at the heart of the tech industry remains as vital as ever.
From AI agents to robot hands, neural networks to self-driving taxis, one thing was clear at London Tech Week: the pace of change is accelerating, and the people building the future can barely contain their enthusiasm for what comes next.
Watch the video here:
