PyCon US Expands With AI and Security Tracks

PyCon US 2026, produced by the Python Software Foundation, takes place in Long Beach, California from May 13 - May 19, 2026, with the main conference days on May 15 - May 17. This year the program adds dedicated AI and Security tracks alongside traditional talks, tutorials, and sprints. The schedule is live and registration is open; the main conference will be in-person with recordings published after the event.

The conference structure breaks down into three core segments that matter to practitioners:

• •Tutorials: May 13 - May 14, deeper hands-on sessions and extended workshops.
• •Main conference / Talks: May 15 - May 17, including the new AI Track and Security Track.
• •Sprints and community work: May 18 - May 19, community-driven coding and contribution days.

The tutorials schedule lists multiple named instructors and time blocks across rooms, signaling a heavy emphasis on practical, multi-hour workshops. The talks schedule indicates that the AI Track is concentrated on a Friday slot, which suggests a curated set of sessions rather than dispersed lightning content. Organizers explicitly stated there will be no live streaming of main conference days, but all talk tracks, keynotes, and lightning talks will be recorded and published to the conference channels after the event.

The addition of a dedicated AI track at PyCon reflects Python's central role in ML and data science stacks, from core libraries to deployment tooling. For practitioners this is less about frontier model announcements and more about ecosystem maturation: tooling, best practices, inference optimization, and integration patterns that bridge Python projects with ML services. The Security track aligns with rising concerns around software supply-chain vulnerabilities, dependency hygiene, and model-related attack surfaces. The presence of organizations like GitHub Security Lab in the event listings signals attention to reproducible research, security tooling, and coordinated community-driven defensive work.

For hands-on practitioners, tutorials and sprints are where skills and code change behavior. Expect sessions that cover reproducible environments, packaging and dependency tooling, containerization for inference, observability for model performance, and secure CI/CD practices for ML pipelines. The schedule naming and recurring tutorial blocks indicate room-scale workshops suitable for extended demos and pair programming.

Organizers recommend staying in Long Beach rather than commuting from Los Angeles to avoid traffic, and they highlight practical travel guidance including options via LAX, LGB, and SNA. A travel advisory notes the TSA alternative identity verification fee for travelers without Real ID, which matters for international participants and those relying on cheaper last-minute flights.

Track-level content and speaker lineups will determine whether PyCon's AI Track skews toward library/tooling deep dives versus model research or product talks. The Security track could surface reproducible testing approaches, SBOM adoption, and ML-specific threat modeling. Post-conference recordings will be the primary broadcast channel for teams that cannot attend in person.

PyCon remains the practical hub where Python tooling and community practice get codified. This year's focus on AI and Security signals that Python maintainers, library authors, and applied ML engineers will have a common venue to share integrations, hardened deployment patterns, and secure development practices. Expect the most immediate ROI from tutorials and sprints, and use recorded talks to scale learnings across teams that cannot attend in person.