SBC Summit's AI Academy opens in Lisbon on 29 September with a revised line-up

SBC Summit 2026 in Lisbon scheduled a new AI Academy for its opening day, 29 September: a paid afternoon of demonstrations, panels and a workshop on how AI is being used in betting and gaming. The organiser announced the academy on 21 July with five sessions. The programme now on SBC's website lists seven, and several speakers and one whole session have changed, so this article sets out what is confirmed as of 24 September and what has moved.

What SBC announced in July

On 21 July 2026 SBC News, the organiser's own trade title, reported that SBC Summit would add an AI Academy on Tuesday 29 September at Sala Tejo, MEO Arena, sold as a EUR 249 add-on to SBC Summit or Affiliate Leaders Summit tickets. It listed five sessions: a live demo on data and AI from Sportradar's chief technology officer Behshad Behzadi; a session on AI agents with Javier Troncoso of Insightplay.ai and Jeffrey Haas of the ID8 Global Gaming Business Accelerator; a session on AI wearables, robotics and human augmentation with John Caldwell, then of i3Soft; a deepfake and AI fraud panel; and a Build Your Own AI Assistant workshop led by Mayank Pachauri of FalconDive.

SBC founder and chief executive Rasmus Sojmark framed the academy as practical rather than promotional, saying "The biggest mistake businesses can make with AI is treating it like a shortcut."

The programme as published

On 24 September, SBC's AI Academy page listed the event from 13:00 to 17:15 on 29 September, although the sessions it listed ran from 13:15 to 17:30. It gives the price as EUR 249 per academy, including access to three hands-on masterclasses. The listed sessions are:

What changed after the announcement

Comparing the July announcement with the current page, three things stand out. First, the wearables, robotics and human augmentation session is no longer listed; John Caldwell now appears, as a consultant at Whoah Labs, with a live demo on AI-made games. Second, the deepfake and fraud session is now a case study with Giorgi Gabidzashvili of Flutter and Lluis Mora of Entain, moderated by Roberta Nicholls; the other panellists named in July, from SQR and Betsson, are not on the current page. Third, two sessions have been added: an opening plenary with speakers from Evoke, OpenAI, AWS and CreateFuture, and a closing case study from Podium and CreateFuture. The workshop is now titled Build Your Own AI Decision Assistant. SBC did not publicly explain the changes, and the running order on the day may have differed from the published one.

Where the academy fits in SBC Summit 2026

SBC Summit 2026's dates are 29 September to 1 October, at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa and the MEO Arena. SBC says the conference has six stages: Global and Emerging Markets, Technology and Innovation, the Payment Expert Summit, Regulation and Compliance, the Affiliate Leaders Summit and a Super Stage in the MEO Arena. The AI Academy is one of four Tech Academies on 29 and 30 September, alongside Player Experience (powered by Soft2Bet), Digital Marketing and CRM, and Web3 and Crypto. SBC News reports that the AI Academy is sponsored by CreateFuture and BetConstruct AI and that each Tech Academy add-on costs EUR 249.

The organiser expects more than 40,000 industry professionals over the three days. In its final preview on 23 September, SBC Americas gave further organiser figures of 800 exhibitors and sponsors and more than 600 speakers. These are the organiser's own projections and have not been independently audited.

What the sessions say about AI in gambling

SBC describes the academy as exploring where AI is creating genuine value in betting and gaming, its current limitations and where human oversight remains essential. The topics on the programme map onto that: sports data, AI agents that act for users, AI-generated game content, AI-enabled impersonation and fraud, and building internal tools. For operators and suppliers, the Trust Test session on deepfakes and impersonation is the one most directly tied to customer protection, because it deals with how businesses check who they are dealing with.

What is confirmed and what is not yet known

• Confirmed: the date (29 September 2026), the venue (Sala Tejo, MEO Arena), the EUR 249 add-on price and the seven sessions on SBC's programme page as of 24 September.
• Confirmed: SBC Summit's dates and venues, and the four Tech Academies.
• Changed since July: the wearables and robotics session and several named speakers from the original announcement.
• Not yet known: what the demos and the workshop showed on the day, and whether the published programme is the one that ran. SBC had not published a session report when this article was last checked, on 29 September 2026. This article does not describe session content, because none had been published by then.

What it means for players

The AI Academy is a trade event for industry professionals, not something players attend, and it does not change any rules. Its relevance for players is indirect: the same AI tools discussed in Lisbon are being used by operators for personalisation, fraud checks and customer support. If a site's messages or offers ever feel pushy, the controls in our responsible gambling guide apply whatever technology sits behind them.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. SBC Events - AI Academy programme page
2. SBC News - SBC Summit's AI academy to cover AI agents, deepfake threats and human-AI collaboration (21 July 2026)
3. SBC Americas - SBC Summit unveils new AI Academy for 2026 edition in Lisbon (21 July 2026)
4. SBC News - SBC unveils Tech Academies to deliver hands-on learning (15 September 2026)
5. SBC Events - SBC Summit to bring active learning to Lisbon with Education+ (2 June 2026)
6. SBC Events - SBC Summit 2026 returns to Lisbon with six-stage conference agenda (6 May 2026)
7. SBC Americas - SBC Summit 2026: everything you need to know (23 September 2026)