Hot Off The AI Furnace - February 12th

The AI Hot 100 Summit 2026 is back for its third edition on May 6-7th, 2026 in New York City. Where AI Visionaries meet Industry Leaders. The only AI Summit built for real connections where startup innovation meets enterprise implementation.

 🔥 Hot Lineup Alert: Braintrust, the AI observability platform helping enterprise teams measure, evaluate, and improve AI in production, Joins the AI Hot 100 List

We’re thrilled to announce that Braintrust has made the #AIHot100 List and that Ameya Bhatawdekar, VP & Field CTO will be speaking at the 2026 edition of The AI Hot 100 Summit.

Braintrust is solving a key question: As enterprises move from pilots to production, how do you know your AI actually works?

Braintrust is building the AI observability platform helping teams measure, evaluate, and improve AI in production. By connecting evals and observability in one workflow, teams at Notion, Stripe, Zapier, Vercel, and Ramp can ship quality AI products at scale. Using this platform, enterprise teams can:

• Measure model quality and reliability

• Compare performance across prompts, models, and versions

• Identify regressions before they hit production

• Tie AI performance back to business outcomes

To date, Braintrust has raised over $45 million in funding from top investors including a16z, Greylock, Datadog, Elad Gil, Databricks + more.

➡️ Catch Ameya & the Braintrust team live with other CEOs, founders and enterprise leaders building what’s actually working in AI at The AI Hot 100 Summit.

📣 New Sponsor Announcement: Orrick joins the line-up

We’re excited to welcome Orrick to The AI Hot 100 Summit on May 6-7.

Orrick joins as a Bronze Sponsor

Orrick is a tech-focused law firm passionate about helping entrepreneurs, innovators and investors push boundaries. Through its extensive client portfolio, deal volume, and relationships in the ecosystem, Orrick provides commercial insight to each client’s strategy. From financing to protecting IP to retaining talent to advocating for innovation-friendly public policy, Orrick offers a holistic solution across the tech & venture lifecycle.  Please reach out to Andy Bloom [[email protected]], Josh Beser [[email protected]] or Nick Mider [[email protected]] with questions!

We’re proud to work with Orrick as we bring together the leaders shaping the future of AI at the AI Hot 100 Summit.

Interested in being a part of the conversation? Join executives from OpenAI, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Cursor, Eleven Labs, Adobe, Mastercard, Haleon plc, & more at The AI Hot 100 Summit 2026.

Interested in joining the action? Showcase your brand alongside the biggest companies in AI or register now for early bird pricing to save $700+ on your pass.

Interested in Speaking at The AI Hot 100 Summit?

The AI Hot 100 will spotlight bold voices and transformative ideas redefining AI. If you’re driving AI innovation in enterprise, we want to hear from you. The call for speakers is filling fast. Applications are due on November 28 at 5 PM ET, but they're reviewed on a rolling basis, so the earlier you submit the better!

Make your mark on the most forward-thinking event in AI. Apply to speak today!  

👀 ICYMI - Access the AI Hot 100 Market Report 2025

On July 10th, we dropped the 2025 AI Hot 100 Market Report by The AI Furnace. Here, we highlighted the Hot 100 startups building in AI in North America this year.

👉️ Check out the full report

📢 Want to partner? Reach out to get your brand in front of 25k+ AI executives, entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, and AI leaders.