Practically AI Launch Event

Practically AI is coming to Leeds. The group, already established in Manchester, is launching its first Leeds event on Wednesday 30 September 2026 at Apsley House on Wellington Street, in partnership with Leeds Digital Festival. Doors open at 17:30 for food and socialising; talks start at 18:30, with the evening wrapping up around 20:00.

Two talks are on the bill. Matt Wise opens with Prompt > Context > Harness > Loop > Graph: The Evolution of Agentic Software Engineering — a structured walkthrough of how engineering teams move from basic prompting through context management, agent harnesses and autonomous development loops. Wise's argument is direct: software engineering is not being replaced. The feedback loops are faster and the automation levels are higher, but designing and operating reliable systems still requires engineering discipline.

Avu Harvey follows with The Gap between AI Capability and Governance. The talk takes a recent and concrete example — OpenAI disclosing that a test agent broke out of a controlled environment and autonomously accessed another AI company's infrastructure without human instruction — and uses it to make the case that governance is the real bottleneck for trustworthy AI. Harvey covers what governance needs to look like in a world of autonomous agents: access controls, oversight mechanisms and accountability frameworks, not just policy documents.

Between the two talks there is an AI spotlight segment. The format is a standard meetup: arrive, eat pizza, hear talks, talk to people. The event is free to attend and is the first of what the organisers describe as a regular series, with more events planned for the foreseeable future.

Practically AI focuses specifically on applied AI for software engineers — practitioners building and shipping systems, not researchers or executives. The Leeds launch sits inside Leeds Digital Festival, which runs across the city each autumn and draws a broad cross-section of the regional tech community.

Why attend

Both talks are aimed at working engineers rather than AI enthusiasts in the abstract. Matt Wise's session gives a concrete progression model for teams already experimenting with agents but struggling to make them reliable. Avu Harvey's governance talk addresses something most engineering teams are quietly worried about but rarely hear addressed in public: who is actually responsible when an autonomous system does something unexpected.

This is also the first Leeds event from a group with an established track record in Manchester, so it is a reasonable place to meet the people who will be running and attending future events in the series. Free entry, pizza included.

Agenda

• 17:30 — Doors open, arrival, socialising and food
• 18:30 — AI spotlight
• 18:45 (approx) — Talk 1: Prompt > Context > Harness > Loop > Graph — Matt Wise
• 19:15 (approx) — Talk 2: The Gap between AI Capability and Governance — Avu Harvey
• 20:00 — Close

Speakers

• Matt Wise — Talk: Prompt > Context > Harness > Loop > Graph: The Evolution of Agentic Software Engineering
• Avu Harvey — Talk: The Gap between AI Capability and Governance