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 at Apsley House on Wellington Street, in partnership with Leeds Digital Festival. Doors open at 17:30 for food and socialising; talks begin at 18:30 and the evening wraps around 20:00.

Two talks are on the bill. Phil Whittaker 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. The argument is direct: software engineering is not being replaced. The feedback loops are faster and automation is increasing, 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, 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 examine why governance (access, oversight, accountability) is the real bottleneck for trustworthy AI. Harvey will cover practical controls and oversight mechanisms suited to autonomous agent systems.

Between the two talks there is an AI spotlight segment. The format is a standard meetup: arrive, eat pizza, hear talks, talk to people. Free to attend.

Practically AI focuses specifically on applied AI for software engineers. It is not a general AI hype event. The Leeds group is new but the format is proven in Manchester, and the organisers have committed to regular events going forward. This launch sits inside Leeds Digital Festival, which runs across the city each autumn and draws a broad cross-section of the Leeds tech community.

Why attend

Both talks are grounded in engineering practice rather than product marketing. Whittaker's session gives a clear mental model for teams at different stages of adopting agentic patterns — useful whether you've shipped one LLM feature or none. Harvey's governance talk addresses something most engineering teams are quietly worried about but rarely discuss in public.

The audience will be software engineers, with some founders and technical leads in the mix. It's a launch event, so the group is small and new — easier to have a real conversation than at a larger, more established meetup. Pizza is provided. No ticket cost.

Agenda

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

Speakers

• Phil Whittaker — Talks on the evolution of agentic software engineering, from prompting to autonomous development loops
• Avu Harvey — Talks on AI governance: practical controls and oversight for autonomous AI agents