Waco, TX – BrainTrust Partners, a firm that enables brands to navigate the AI era, has signed on as the Founding Title Sponsor of the YOU × AI Summit, Waco's first conference dedicated to artificial intelligence. The event is set for Saturday, September 12, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT at the Performing Arts & Community Center in downtown Waco.
The summit aims to provide practical guidance for businesses and individuals looking to integrate AI into their operations. BrainTrust CEO Tim Hayden will take the main stage at 9:50 a.m. with his talk, "Your Data, Your AI, and Your Future," where he will share how companies can identify AI use cases before making additional purchases and how to approach AI in a secure, private, and controlled manner.
"You have intelligence sitting somewhere within the pipes of your business," Hayden said. "That's your brand. It is your brand DNA that can shape AI in your brand voice." He stressed that many companies have yet to fully structure and label their data for AI, a process his firm has been advocating since its founding in 2016. Data that is resolved, unified, structured, and labeled allows AI to work more effectively for a brand, he noted, and skipping this step will cost more in budget and accuracy.
Hayden also cautioned against relying solely on public AI models like ChatGPT or Claude for all business needs. "There's no reason why you have to look at ChatGPT or Claude to run everything," he said, advocating for open-weight models that can be trained on a company's own data, run privately, and cost a fraction of enterprise subscriptions that are trained on others' data.
The conference will feature 23 speakers across four tracks: Build, Get Found, Sound Like You, and AI Safety. Attendees are encouraged to bring laptops for hands-on workshops. Bryan Eisenberg, a pioneer in conversion rate optimization, will open the day at 8:20 a.m. with a keynote titled "Before the Algorithm, There Was Your Story. That Hasn't Changed." Dr. Hope Koch, who holds the Godfrey Sullivan Endowed Chair at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business and serves on the Texas Artificial Intelligence Council, will close at 4:05 p.m. with a session called HOPE (Human Opportunity and a Period of Exponential Change).
Other sessions include Joseph Scaramucci on "AI, Crime & Community," Dariia Isyk on an AI mentor for students, Dr. Mito Diaz-Espinoza on making AI work for diverse communities, and Sara Lohse on using storytelling to stand out. Russ Henneberry will present on building an AI marketing operating system, and Chrissy McDannell will lead a workshop where participants build an AI assistant. Mike Hamilton, co-organizer, will share lessons from AI failures in "None of this works! Oh...Wait..."
Fernando Labastida, co-organizer and founder of the Viral Genius Institute, explained the summit's name: "Most people think AI is the great equalizer. It's a multiplier, and multipliers widen gaps. A business with nothing to say brings a 1, and AI takes it to 2. The competitor with a real point of view brings a 10, and the same AI takes them to 20. Same tools. Bigger gap." He added, "Dr. Koch is telling people that AI plus humans is better than AI alone, and two humans alone. That's the whole summit in one sentence."
Tickets are $99, with discounts for teams of 10 or more at $69 per seat through September 10. Session recordings are available as a $99 add-on. Registration is available at youxai.live.
The YOU × AI Summit is produced by the Viral Genius Institute and Rogue Media Network, with presenting sponsor BrainTrust Partners. More information about BrainTrust can be found at braintrustpartners.ai.
