AI Solution Day 03: HR and People, 20 October in Vienna
Ten HR-tech startups pitch, then corporates work their real people challenges at the table.
The third edition of AI Solution Day takes place on 20 October 2026 at weXelerate, Praterstraße 1. The topic is HR and people.
The format is the same one we have run twice before, because it works: startups pitch, then everyone sits down together and works on real challenges that corporates bring into the room. The day runs in English and is hybrid, though the working part only exists in person.
What happens on the day
Demo Day, 13:00 to 14:30. Ten startups, five minutes each, followed by three minutes of live questions. Audience voting and feedback. Available to join online as well as in the room.
Co-creation roundtables, 14:45 to 17:45. Two intensive working sessions of 45 minutes each. Corporates pair with startups on a challenge the corporate has submitted in advance. This is not a pitch and it is not consulting. It is a group of people working through a problem that one of them has.
Networking from 18:00. Drinks, and no agenda.
Check-in opens at noon and an opening keynote runs from 12:45.
Who it is for
Startups with a product-focused, scalable AI solution for HR and people challenges. Agencies and consultancies are not a fit for this format. Selection is curated and spots are limited. Participation is free.
Corporates bringing HR and innovation leadership, who join as roundtable challenge holders. That means submitting a real HR problem in advance and spending the afternoon working on it with startups and peers. Participation costs 1,400 euros per person, excluding VAT.
Why HR
The first two editions covered customer care and adjacent operational topics. HR came up repeatedly in the follow-up conversations, and for a specific reason.
People functions are under pressure from two directions at once. Hiring, development and retention are getting harder, and at the same time AI is arriving in exactly those workflows faster than most HR teams have had a chance to evaluate it. The gap between what vendors claim and what survives contact with a works council, a data protection review and a sceptical hiring manager is wide, and it is not well documented anywhere.
That gap is what the roundtables are for.
The thing that makes it different
Most corporate-startup formats end when the pitching ends, and the room disperses into business card exchange. This one does the opposite. The pitching is the short part. The long part is mixed groups sitting at tables with a real problem in front of them.
In the first edition, follow-up meetings were being booked before the day was over.
Full agenda, speaker updates and applications are at aisolutionday.at.
AI Solution Day is an event by weXelerate. Event partner: ÖBAG.
