SXSW Conference and Festivals said it has announced more than 300 featured sessions for its 2027 festival in Austin. The event will take place downtown in March for its 41st conference and festival. It is the first under new ownership. Los Angeles-based Penske Media Corp. took full ownership in August.
SXSW said it chose the panels from more than 3,300 submissions from attendees. The organization said those submissions showed strong demand for more sessions on artificial intelligence. It called this its largest sessions announcement for the festival.
Leaders from Google, ESPN, IBM, OpenAI, Nvidia and Meta will host sessions at the innovation conference. At the music conference, Billboard and Amazon Music leaders will discuss personal branding for musicians. Sony Music and other industry leaders will talk about identifying AI-generated music. The film and TV conference will include the visual effects supervisor for the horror film "Backrooms." The full speaker list is on SXSW's website. The festival runs March 15-21, and SXSW EDU runs March 13-16.