For conference organizers

See the patterns while planning the program

The visual is specific for a conference, the numbers are taken from a set of five or six conferences in a specific region, and for one category of conferences.

Line chart showing four design topics as a share of conference programmes from 2023 to 2026, with AI design peaking in 2024 and declining since
One topic against the practice, four years running. AI design peaked in 2024 and has fallen as a share ever since.
  • 280 conference editions
  • 178 full programmes
  • 4,878 people

One thing to be clear about first: none of this is private data. It is read from published programmes, and the value is not that the figures are hidden — it is that reading 178 programmes and reconciling 4,878 people into distinct identities is work nobody wants to do once a year.

What if you could know which topics are trending over the last few years in conferences of your size, in or around your location, the patterns in which speakers take the stage, and how your own editions read against the practice?

Rising, falling, and flat

Bar chart of rising, falling and flat topics in design conference programmes

Is this topic early, or third in a row?

A topic that four in five programmes already carry is table stakes, not a draw. The index can tell you which subjects arrived, which are flat, and which the field has quietly dropped — as a share, so the growth in coverage is taken out.

Who has been on which stage

Which of your speakers appear elsewhere, where, on what, and how recently. Which of your peers' stages they have been on. And where your own programme had someone first, sometimes years before the circuit.

Our insights for each conference

Every conference is unique — its programme, its history, its theme, location and audience. So each report is read for that conference rather than run off a template. Five examples, from five different conferences.

Want one for your conference?

Tell us which conference you run and we will read your programme against the practice. We will come back with what the index can show for your category and region, and what that would involve.

Tell us about your conference