Newsletter
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted an in-person meetup featuring Cloudflare and PostHog, showcasing LLM production builds and agentic workflows with live code demos and networking.
AI Tinkerers Chicago convened for a hands-on technical show-and-tell, featuring Coinflow's CTO and supported by UChicago Graham School.
AI Tinkerers Chicago explored why voice AI agents fail, highlighting orchestration challenges. Rod Rivera presented real-world failures and code examples.
Applied AI Chicago convened engineers and founders for production AI discussions, featuring insights from Polaris and Zapier, supported by Drive Capital and Swan AI.
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted a technical meetup for generative AI builders. The event featured demos and discussions on LLMs, with support from Drive Capital and OneTwoLoop.
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted a technical meetup focused on generative AI, featuring Programmers Inc. The event facilitated sharing of working systems and lessons learned.
![A promotional banner for the 'AI Tinkerers Chicago Meetup' featuring a bold, high-contrast design in neon pink and lime green, overlaid with an illustration of two people discussing technical content near a whiteboard and a computer, set against a stylized Chicago skyline.. Text: AI Tinkerers Chicago Meetup Featuring DUBCLUB February 17, 2026 AI TINKERERS • CHICAGO [unreadable mathematical/technical text on whiteboard]](https://images.aitinkerers.org/cdn-cgi/image/height=475,width=700,fit=cover,format=auto,quality=68/blog_images/screenshot-2026-01-27-at-30-48-pm-png-atBl.png)
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted a technical meetup for builders and researchers. Attendees shared working systems and lessons learned in generative AI, with thanks to sponsor DubClub.
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted a meetup for builders to discuss AI code and roadmaps, featuring PostHog as a partner.
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted an in-person meetup featuring hands-on AI system building and demos, sponsored by Turing.
AI Tinkerers held a hackathon where builders prototyped context-aware agents using LiquidMetal's Raindrop platform, supported by Drive Capital.
![A retro-futuristic digital banner promoting the 'AI Tinkers Chicago October Meetup,' featuring a stylized blue illustration of the Chicago skyline and a group of silhouetted figures looking at a large screen displaying glowing data.. Text: AI TINKERERS CHICAGO October Meetup ft Programmers Inc. 0530 PM AI TINKERERS-CHICAGO [unreadable dense text on screen]](https://images.aitinkerers.org/cdn-cgi/image/height=475,width=700,fit=cover,format=auto,quality=68/integrated_text_banner/_FQ-IDL3LRZg.jpg)
AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted a meetup for AI practitioners, featuring demos and networking. Programmers Inc. sponsored the event.
![The image is a digital banner advertising an 'AI Tinkerers Chicago' meetup, featuring two laptops with vibrant, abstract screens and robotic hands appearing to type. The scene is set within a dark, brick-like tunnel or chamber with glowing, unreadable text covering the arched ceiling, against a starry background.. Text: AI Tinkerers Chicago
August Meetup, August 12, 5:30 PM CDT
AI TINKERERS - CHICAGO
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AI Tinkerers Chicago hosted an in-person meetup for practitioners building with foundation models. The event featured demos and networking, sponsored by Drive Capital.
Chicago LLM builders attended a hands-on meetup featuring work-in-progress demos and technical networking, sponsored by Comet.
Practitioners gathered for hands-on demos and technical exchange building with foundation models and large language models. Bonsai and Drive Capital sponsored the in-person meetup.
Builders gathered for hands-on demos and rapid experimentation with foundation models and large language model applications, supported by Drive Capital.
Technical builders gathered for demos, hands-on troubleshooting, and networking focused on large language models and generative artificial intelligence, supported by Drive Capital.
Active builders networked, shared five-minute work-in-progress demos of foundation model projects, and collaborated during this in-person gathering, which Drive Capital sponsored.
The in-person working meetup focused on rapid demos and practical collaboration for builders actively using large language models and generative artificial intelligence, sponsored by Drive Capital.
The community celebrated its one-year anniversary with hands-on demos, networking, and troubleshooting for builders of large language models and generative artificial intelligence, sponsored by Drive Capital.
Active builders shared foundation model and large language model work through five-minute demos, networking, and knowledge sharing, sponsored by Drive Capital.
Practitioners gathered for hands-on demos, networking, and focused discussion on large language models and generative artificial intelligence, supported by Drive Capital.
Practitioners gathered for hands-on demos and networking, featuring fireside chats with leaders from Cameo and Tegus, supported by sponsors like Drive Capital and Brex.
Practitioners connected for high-signal demos and technical conversation about LLM-enabled apps. The event featured two demo blocks and was sponsored by Drive Capital.
Hands-on builders gathered for demos, networking, and knowledge sharing, featuring a fireside chat with John Agan of Replit and sponsored by Drive Capital and Brex.
Practitioners building with foundation models gathered to share five-minute demos of works-in-progress and foster technical collaboration. Drive Capital hosted and sponsored the event.
Practitioners gathered for an in-person meetup focused on sharing LLM-enabled product work-in-progress through short, candid demos. Landon and Drive Capital hosted and sponsored the event.
Practitioners shared early-stage foundation model work during this in-person meetup which featured a fireside chat with Logan Kilpatrick of OpenAI and was sponsored by Drive Capital.
Practitioners gathered for hands-on exchange, sharing live demos of foundation model builds and LLM prototypes, supported by Drive Capital sponsorship.
Practitioners gathered for hands-on technical exchange on foundation models and generative AI projects, featuring short demos from builders, hosted and sponsored by Drive Capital.
AI Tinkerers Chicago held its inaugural meetup for practitioners building with foundation models. Speakers shared work in progress, fostering collaboration and innovation.
Best AI meetup in Chicago for builders
AI Tinkerers Chicago is built for engineers, founders, researchers, product builders, and developers working on AI agents, multimodal and voice interfaces, RAG and knowledge systems, AI coding tools, workflow automation, evals, observability, and production AI infrastructure. Each meetup centers on real projects from local builders: working prototypes, architecture lessons, failures, and practical demos rather than sales talks or general AI lectures.
The Chicago chapter is part of a 252-city global network with 123,000+ members, making AI Tinkerers the world's largest hands-on AI builder community. Members include AI engineers, ML researchers, developers, founders, and builders from the local Chicago chapter.
A typical AI Tinkerers Chicago meetup runs about three hours with live demos from local builders, technical Q&A, and networking. Demos are expected to show real systems or code, not sales decks. Check the upcoming events listed above for the next scheduled meetup. Most AI Tinkerers chapters run monthly, but frequency varies by city. Subscribe to the Chicago chapter to get notified.
AI Tinkerers Chicago is the best AI meetup in Chicago for hands-on builders who want live code demos, technical discussion, and no-pitch networking. The Chicago chapter hosts in-person events for engineers, founders, researchers, and product builders working on AI agents, multimodal and voice interfaces, RAG and knowledge systems, AI coding tools, workflow automation, evals, observability, and production AI infrastructure. Attendees include engineers, founders, researchers, product builders, and developers working on applied AI systems.
AI Tinkerers Chicago is screened, demo-first, and no-pitch. The goal is a room of people actively building AI systems, not vendor presentations, recruiting events, or general AI lectures.
Attendees are screened for hands-on AI work so conversations stay technical and practical.
Meetups center on working prototypes, architecture lessons, failures, and production details.
The Chicago chapter is part of a 252-city network with 123,000+ members worldwide.
Claude is Anthropic's flagship family of large language models (LLMs): a high-performance, Constitutional AI system built for safety, complex reasoning, and expert-level collaboration.
Anthropic's agentic coding tool: Unleash Claude's raw power directly in your terminal or IDE to turn complex, hours-long workflows into a single command.
Anthropic's mid-tier model: balances state-of-the-art coding (72.7% on SWE-bench) with cost-efficiency for high-volume, agentic workflows.
Codex is OpenAI's autonomous AI software engineering agent: it executes full development tasks in a sandboxed cloud environment.
Python: The high-level, general-purpose language built for readability, powering everything from web backends to advanced machine learning models.
The open-source PostgreSQL development platform: a Firebase alternative for rapid backend deployment.
Vercel is the Frontend Cloud: a unified platform for building, deploying, and scaling modern web applications, including Next.js, with performance-focused global infrastructure.
Amazon Bedrock
Amazon Bedrock is the fully managed, serverless service for building and scaling generative AI applications with a choice of high-performing foundation models via a single API.
The Application Programming Interface (API) is the digital contract that allows two separate software systems to communicate and exchange data, typically JSON, securely over a network.
Babylon scales Bitcoin security to the Proof-of-Stake economy via decentralized staking and timestamping protocols.
"Keep up the good work. This group is a really great way to stay connected to what's happening with AI in Chicago."
"This is such a great idea. I signed up right away. Your network puts you in a unique position to really make this idea scale, and reach the right people."
"The variety of presentations are great. It is nice to see how people operationally use cutting edge AI tools. Also projects from small pet projects, to grander vision."
"Super great to see what you were able to do , I think many of the ideas for vibe coding were solid and it was helpful to see them in a real useful project"
"Loved it and went home and tried the stuff I learned from his demo and it improved our workflow for gathering analytics"
"Unorganized time to chat! I loved hearing people's perspectives on the space & their roles."
"Loved it. I moved here from Seattle and I was encouraged to see the level of expertise here in Chicago."
"Keep bringing in great people to give talks about their projects"
"The system prompt breakdown was the best slide of the night. Static part above the cache point."
"Leaders from successful startups as speakers is great. Love hearing from my tinkerers but it was clear alpha in building a business and companies actually hiring created a different vibe."
Last updated: August 2026
