Inspire 2026 returns to the US East Coast at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando from 18–21 May, positioned as “the analytics event of the year” for practitioners and leaders. Across mainstage keynotes, 100+ breakout sessions and hands-on labs, the focus is clear: how to get data “ready for anything” and connect new generative and agentic AI capabilities to business outcomes, not just dashboards.
This year’s edition lands at a moment when AI platforms are becoming strategic to the business, not just another tool in the data stack, with CIOs and CDOs under pressure to move from GenAI pilots to governed, production‑grade value. Alteryx’s answer is its unified Alteryx One platform and an “AI Data Clearinghouse” concept that promises trusted, governed data feeding AI and analytics across any environment.
AI & Data Insider will attend Inspire 2026; this guide is meant to help leaders decide where to focus their limited time.
How the Week is Structured
Inspire is organised as a progression: train, get inspired, then go deep.
- Monday–Tuesday (18–19 May): Two days of technical training, with instructor‑led, hands‑on sessions for all skill levels, plus tips sessions, UX labs and a welcome reception on Tuesday.
- Wednesday (20 May): The “heart of Inspire” with main stage keynotes, in‑depth breakout sessions and the high‑energy Grand Prix competition.
- Thursday (21 May): More keynotes and breakouts, plus Obscura and Product Sneaks showcasing early ideas and innovations from Alteryx’s product teams.
Overlaying that are three tracks — Stories of Innovation, All‑Tricks and What’s New — designed to move from inspiration to implementation and then into new product capabilities.
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Watch the Platform Story, Not Just the Feature Names
For leaders, the most important thread to follow on the main stage isn’t individual features; it’s how Alteryx is evolving its AI data platform story.
Over the past year, Alteryx has introduced a unified platform for enterprise analytics and AI orchestration, bringing together Designer, cloud capabilities and governance into Alteryx One. Alongside this, the company has been promoting an “AI Data Clearinghouse” model — a governed layer where organisations can centralise, control and prepare data before it feeds AI agents or analytics applications.
Keynotes and “What’s New” sessions at Inspire 2026 will build on that trajectory: expect more on how Alteryx One spans cloud warehouses, on‑prem systems and hybrid environments, and how its AI and automation capabilities plug into that foundation. For CIOs and CDOs, the useful questions to keep in mind are:
- Where does this platform sit relative to my existing lake/warehouse and BI stack?
- How easily can I move workloads — and costs — between “in‑database”, cloud and local execution?
- Does the governance model keep pace with more automated, agent‑style workflows?
Executive Summit: A Leadership Lab for “The Age of Intelligence”
Alongside the main conference, Inspire hosts an invite‑only Executive Summit on 19–20 May for senior leaders navigating “the age of intelligence”.
The Summit blends:
- A visionary keynote and Q&A with CEO Andy MacMillan.
- A leadership workshop with Forrester analyst Rowan Curran.
- Industry and line‑of‑business solution stories, plus facilitated table conversations about AI and analytics strategy.
This is where Alteryx is most explicitly tackling board‑level questions: how to set direction for AI, how much risk to tolerate with agentic automation, and how to align platform bets like Alteryx One with operating‑model change in the business. For AI & Data Insider readers, it’s the part of Inspire most likely to surface candid discussion of governance, talent and “what we’d do differently next time”, rather than just polished success stories.
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Customer Field Notes: Where Analytics is Really Biting
Under the Stories of Innovation track, Inspire brings together customer sessions from sectors as varied as banking, retail, logistics, and more.
Featured examples include:
- Bank of America: “How Bank of America Built an Auditor of the Future using Alteryx” – a look at what an analytics‑enabled audit team and automated testing actually look like in a highly regulated environment.
- Kroger: “Driving Smarter Routing Decisions at Kroger with Alteryx” – how the supermarket giant evaluates routing from spoke facilities versus stores, using metrics like cost, route count, efficiency and mileage to optimise logistics.
Alongside these are training sessions like “Build AI‑Powered Workflows with GenAI Tools” and “Design Patterns in GenAI + Alteryx — Five Real‑World Use Cases”, which show how customers and Alteryx experts are combining GenAI tools, Copilot and APIs in practical patterns.
Taken together, these sessions are less about “AI for AI’s sake” and more about where analytics is quietly reshaping operations, risk and customer journeys in organisations that are not software companies. If you attend, it is worth deliberately choosing at least one story outside your own industry to see which patterns genuinely transfer.
From Power Users to AI‑augmented Analysts
The first two days of Inspire function as a bootcamp for the AI‑era analyst: full‑day, expert‑led training on how to translate Excel into automated workflows, build AI‑powered pipelines with GenAI tools, and master Designer Desktop and Designer Cloud.
These sessions sit alongside All‑Tricks content on topics like modernising data pipelines, operationalising analytics and pushing workload into cloud warehouses. With Alteryx increasingly bundling GenAI, Copilot and agentic capabilities into its platform, the emphasis is shifting from “learn this tool” to “learn how to safely use AI to design, document and manage end‑to‑end workflows”.
For leaders, this is a signal of how the analytics workforce is being re‑tooled: upskilling analysts into AI‑augmented workflow designers, while trying to keep governance and control front and centre.
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Signals to Watch When the Announcements Drop
Inspire has become the stage where Alteryx tests its bigger bets on what an AI‑ready data platform should be — from Alteryx One and AI Data Clearinghouse, to new governance controls and agentic capabilities. Without pre‑empting anything under embargo, there are three kinds of moves leaders should watch for when announcements go live.
- From workflows to agent‑driven systems
The narrative is shifting from “build an analytic workflow” to “let the system help design, run and adapt that workflow on your behalf”. Look for capabilities that make today’s data‑to‑insight pipelines more autonomous and adaptive, while still emphasising repeatability, auditability and human oversight. - A more unified, flexible analytics platform
Alteryx has been positioning Alteryx One as a single, trusted layer to build and orchestrate workflows across cloud and on‑prem environments. New moves are likely to deepen that story by making it easier for analysts and operations teams to design once and then run analytics wherever it makes most sense for the business — in‑warehouse, in the cloud, or closer to applications. - Governance that keeps up with agentic automation
As AI shifts from answering questions to taking actions, governance has to shift from “overlay” to “design constraint”. Watch for how Alteryx expands its control plane — centralised access, lineage, policy enforcement and AI control centres — so organisations can see, manage and govern data and AI behaviour across this evolving platform, including more ambitious agent‑style automations.
AI & Data Insider will be tracking these threads from Orlando — platform bets, leadership conversations and the reality of customer deployments — and will follow up with deeper coverage on the CPO’s product vision, Executive Summit field notes, and the key bets that will matter most for AI‑driven enterprises over the next 12–18 months. Register here for Inspire 2026 by Alteryx.
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