SXSW announces more than 325 community-voted sessions for 2027

South by Southwest (SXSW) has announced the results of its PanelPicker process, resulting in more than 325 sessions coming to the 2027 innovation, music, and film & TV conferences. SXSW 2027 will take place March 15-21.

PanelPicker is a community-voted application process for speakers to submit their panel ideas and users to show which ones spark the most interest. More than 3,300 proposals were submitted for consideration.

In a press release sharing the results, SXSW listed the most popular topics according to prospective speaker submissions: Tech & AI, Workplace, Brand & Marketing, Health, and Creator Economy. AI was the hottest topic overall, it said, and that included skepticism. Almost a fifth (19 percent) of submissions were about trust and transparency. Community was also a big topic, showing up in 17% of submissions. Workplace topics made up the largest increase compared to submissions for 2026.

“The 2027 PanelPicker submissions signal profound shifts across every industry our event features. We have officially moved past the theoretical hype of artificial intelligence and into a more pragmatic era,” said SVP of programming Greg Rosenbaum in the release.