Architecture in the Age of AI

QCon London 2026

Track

Architecture in the Age of AI

Wednesday 18 March · 5 sessions, 50 minutes each

About the track

In the age of AI, the definition of great software architecture is being rewritten. While Large Language Models capture the headlines, the real challenge for architects lies in the infrastructure that surrounds them. It is no longer enough to simply "plug in" an LLM; designing for the next generation of software requires a fundamental rethink of how we manage context, ensure data safety, and evaluate non-deterministic systems. The shift from static applications to dynamic, autonomous agents demands a move from simple prompt engineering to robust Context Engineering.

The hurdles are significant: How do you prepare a data platform to serve the unique needs of Agentic Systems? How can we leverage Semantic Knowledge Layers—like Knowledge Graphs and Ontologies—to reduce hallucinations and provide agents with high-precision reasoning? As we move toward modular ecosystems, mastering standardized protocols like the Model Context Protocol (MCP) becomes essential for building maintainable and efficient agent-data integrations. Furthermore, the traditional testing playbook is being replaced by AI Evals, requiring new techniques to monitor and improve app behavior in the wild.

Join us at the Architectures in the Age of AI track, where we move beyond the hype to explore the actionable blueprints of the AI era. From mastering context to scaling production-grade evaluations, you will gain the insights and strategies needed to build reliable, safe, and sophisticated AI-driven systems. This is your chance to discover how to architect a future where AI doesn't just exist in your app—it excels.

Sessions in this track

Wednesday 18 March. 5 sessions per track, chosen and introduced by the Track Host.

10:35 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session agentic coding The Right 300 Tokens Beat 100k Noisy Ones: The Architecture of Context Engineering Patrick Debois, Baruch Sadogursky 11:45 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session AI/ML Beyond Benchmarks: How Evaluations Ensure Safety at Scale in LLM Applications Clara Matos Director of Applied AI @Sword Health, Focused on Building and Scaling Machine Learning Systems 13:35 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session data platform engineering Building an AI Ready Global Scale Data Platform George Peter Hantzaras Engineering Director, Core Platforms @MongoDB, Open Source Ambassador, Published Author 14:45 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Your Agent Sandbox Doesn't Know My Authz Model: A Standard-Shaped Hole Paul Carleton Member of Technical Staff @Anthropic, Core Maintainer of MCP 15:55 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Explicit Semantics for AI Applications: Ontologies in Practice Jesús Barrasa Field CTO for AI @Neo4j
76% senior dev or higher
1:11 speaker ratio
60+ practitioners

QCon London 2026 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.

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