A free, community-owned meetup for anyone looking to get the most out of AI. From first-time explorers to those pushing the boundaries of the possible.
The GL AI Meetup was founded by Robin Smith and Rob Mead in early 2026. With the release of Anthropic's co-work and the rapid adoption of frontier AI models, the technology was taking off at a pace unlike anything most of us had seen before in the industry.
Following the success of Max Tatton-Brown's Anthropic meetup (Claude Code Curious) in London, Robin & Rob looked to see if there was anything similar in the very vibrant technology community in GL and were surprised to find there wasn't.
The first event was hosted at Hub 8 MX in Cheltenham on Wednesday the 15th of April. We had 80 people sign up and over 65 attend on the evening. We're aiming to hold a meetup once a month, likely alternating between Hub 8 MX in Cheltenham and Patch in Gloucester, although we're open to other interesting venues who can accommodate us free of charge.
The meetup is community-owned and operated and not for profit. In return for putting on the event, we do ask for a small donation to a charity as a sign of goodwill from the community. Like all community-originated events, the success of them is entirely dependent on the goodwill of people donating time to talk and help organise and money to cover drinks and food for folk on the evenings of the event. If you'd like to help in either capacity, please reach out to Robin & Rob to chat further.
Hub 8 MX, Cheltenham
80 registrations · 65+ attendees
Simon talked us through his and EDB's journey of rolling out Claude Code to over 300 people in the business.
Tim and Sally talked through their experiences of Claude for financial modelling in Excel.
Robin shared some experiences of going down a rabbit warren with Claude for setting up Obsidian and the economics of building 65,000 lines of code over a weekend.
Robin's (AI Slop Generated) slides nobody got to see because of AV issuesMany thanks to Greg Evans from GT Search and Dan Parsons from P2 Growth for sponsoring the drinks and food.
We're aiming to hold one event a month. Check back or get in touch to stay in the loop.
Community events are only as good as the people behind them. The GL AI Meetup is a free event for anyone looking to get the most out of AI, whether you're discovering it for the first time or pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
We want the event to be free, inclusive, and accessible to all, and to do that we're relying on the goodwill and donations of people in the community.
Venues that can host 80+ people for an evening
Help with the administrative and logistical organisation of the event
Sponsors to cover refreshments on the evening
Any other contributions of time or money are always welcome
Many thanks to our sponsors so far, and we're always looking for additional sponsors who would be willing, happy, and able to help. Please get in touch if you're able to help with any of the above.
Contact Robin & Rob
