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Announcing the Cerebral Valley Voice Summit, Featuring Sierra's Bret Taylor, Abridge's Shiv Rao & More Top Founders

Brief

The Cerebral Valley Voice Summit is a one‑day, invite‑only conference focused on voice as a computing interface, scheduled for May 6, 2026 in San Francisco, with applications open now. Organizers position the event as a dedicated follow‑up to the twice‑annual Cerebral Valley AI Summits, arguing that recent capability improvements in voice infrastructure have unlocked new applications across wearables, healthcare, gaming and customer service. The confirmed speaker slate includes Bret Taylor (Sierra co‑founder; OpenAI board chair), Jake Saper (Emergence), Dylan Fox (AssemblyAI), Shiv Rao (Abridge) and Anastasis Germanidis (Runway). Eric Newcomer hosts the summit with Max Child and James Wilsterman of Weekend; Felicis is the first sponsor. Pricing tiers run from $99 (founder) to $999 (sales/professional services), with media passes free and half‑day options at $399 for some startup roles.

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The summit will be on May 6 in San Francisco. Applications are now open.

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Announcing the Cerebral Valley Voice Summit, Featuring Sierra's Bret Taylor, Abridge's Shiv Rao & More Top Founders

Eric Newcomer

Mar 17

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The technology is finally here. Humans can talk to machines without the halting speech and constant mix-ups that defined past approaches.

That capability leap has spawned new voice infrastructure providers and all sorts of compelling voice applications.

People started nudging us to think about a dedicated event focused on what’s happening in voice.

So we’re doing just that.

On Wednesday, May 6, in San Francisco we will be hosting a one-day, invite-only event dedicated to voice as a computer interface.

We ’re calling it the Cerebral Valley Voice Summit.

The event will have the same high-caliber founders, investors, AI leaders, and members of the media you’ve come to expect from our summits. We’ll just be deeply focused on voice as a computing interface and an unlock for all sorts of new ideas.

Voice is a horizontal technology. It doesn’t belong to any single industry or use case. Voice is how consumers will interact with their wearable devices. It’s how patients will navigate their healthcare. It’s how gamers play alongside their friends and how they will interact with non-player characters in the future. It’s how customer service reaches thousands more callers.

Apply to Attend

We’ve already locked in a stacked speaker lineup, including:

Bret Taylor , co-founder of Sierra and Chairman of the OpenAI board

Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence Capital

Dylan Fox , founder and CEO of AssemblyAI

Shiv Rao , founder and CEO of Abridge

Anastasis Germanidis , founder and co-CEO of Runway

More speakers will be announced over the next few weeks.

I host the Cerebral Valley AI Summit with my good friends Max Child and James Wilsterman. Max and James are the founders of Weekend, which has been building voice-native products since before it was fashionable. They’ve hosted all of our CVAI summits with me — this one will just be especially in their wheelhouse.

We encourage you to apply to attend the summit. We’re eager to have ambitious AI startup founders, general partners at top venture capital firms, members of the media, and other AI insiders in the room. Raise your hand and let us know you want to be there.

Regular tickets are $699. Founder tickets are $99. Sales and Professional Services tickets are $999. Media passes are free. Startup employees and select other junior roles will only be offered half-day admission for $399. To learn more about pricing, click here.

Special thanks to our first sponsor, Felicis, for helping us bring together the premier leaders in AI voice.

More speaker and sponsor announcements coming soon.

To see _Newcomer ’s_ full event calendar, click here.

To reach out with questions or to sponsor the event, email newcomer@newcomer.co.

To learn more about our past Cerebral Valley AI Summits, go to cerebralvalley.com. We’ll host our mid-year summit in London and then will be back in San Francisco with our anchor event in November.

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