Barcelona in September is not a bad place to work. The sea is still warm, the terraces are still full, and for one week the whole city turns into an AI conference.
A week ago we wrote that Lilidi was heading to AI Summit Barcelona. We went, we talked to a lot of people, and we came back with 19 photos, a notebook full of names and a much clearer picture of what founders want from an AI representative. This is the full recap.
Arriving early: the harbour first
We landed two days before the summit on purpose. Big events are much easier when you arrive rested, and the best introductions of the week often happen before the badges are printed.
So the first evening was simple: a boat across Port Vell, golden light on the Columbus monument, and a long walk along the marina. No slides, no demos. Just the city.
Claude Community Barcelona: the unofficial opening
On 21 September AI Week really started for us, at the Claude Community Barcelona meetup. Pixel-art mascots on the wall, a “Gone Bananas” shirt on me, and a room so full that people stood along the back.
The main talk was about MCP: one standard port so any assistant can plug into any tool. That is exactly the problem Lilidi Twin lives with every day. A Twin is only as useful as the knowledge and tools it can reach. Watching a room of builders get excited about connectors told us the timing is right.
Afterwards we walked out to the waterfront with new contacts, including Olivier Tytgat, and kept talking until the sun went down over the yachts.
Day one at WTC: “Barcelona is the AI Hub of Europe”
22 September, World Trade Center Barcelona. The first thing you see near the Main Stage is a huge orange wall with one sentence on it: Barcelona is the AI Hub of Europe. After two days here, it is hard to argue.
The keynotes covered scaling, use cases and debates. The theme that kept coming back was the same one we care about: AI is moving from “interesting demo” to “something that does real work inside the company”. The question is no longer can it talk. The question is should it talk for you, and what it is allowed to say.
On the floor: booths, boats and a very full terrace
The exhibition floor was a map of the AI stack we build on. At the AWS Startups booth we found a laptop covered in ElevenLabs stickers, which felt like a good sign, given that our Twins speak with ElevenLabs voices.
Outside, the summit had its own sailing boat on the quay with a banner that read “Prompt me if you can”. We accepted the challenge and pitched Lilidi Twin to everyone standing nearby.
And then there was the waterfront terrace: umbrellas, palms, yachts in the background and hundreds of people doing what they actually came for, which is talking to each other.
The people we met
A conference is only as good as its conversations. Thank you to everyone who stopped, listened and asked hard questions. A special shout-out to the people who made this week memorable:
The evening reception was the loudest and warmest part of the week: a glass of white wine, a crowd under the lights and a lot of “send me the link to your Twin”.
What founders told us
We asked almost everyone the same question: would you let an AI Twin handle your first conversation with a customer? The answers were more consistent than we expected.
Yes, but only with approved knowledge.
Nobody wants an AI that improvises about pricing. The Twin has to speak from what the company has signed off, and hand over when it does not know.
Speed matters more than perfection.
A useful answer at 11pm beats a perfect answer next Tuesday. Founders lose leads simply because nobody replied in time.
The handover is the product.
The Twin is valuable when the human meeting starts better: with context, a qualified lead and notes, not from zero.
Show me, don't tell me.
The moment people talked to a Twin themselves, the conversation changed. A live demo beats any slide.
“The founder's knowledge should not be locked inside the founder's calendar.” That sentence got more nods in Barcelona than anything else we said.
AI Week in numbers
- 5
- days in Barcelona
- 2
- summit days at WTC
- 10,000+
- attendees
- 19
- photos in this recap
Full gallery
What's next
The morning after, the harbour looked exactly as calm as it did when we arrived. Our notebook did not. We are now following up with everyone we met and turning their feedback into the next Lilidi Twin release.
Missed us in Barcelona? You can still talk to a Twin today. It takes a few minutes to try, and it is the fastest way to understand what we spent five days explaining.