South by Southwest will host more than 250 sessions for the festival’s 40th anniversary.

The next edition of the technology and arts festival — slated for March 12 to March 18, 2026, in Austin, Texas — will cover topics like AI, the creator economy, psychology of marketing, future of scent branding, DNA and the dark genome, how world peace is global health and designing for societal shifts.

“This year, one theme stuck out above the rest: humans,” Greg Rosenbaum, SXSW ’s SVP of programming, said in a statement. “Across all of our tracks — Tech & AI, Cities & Climate, Creator Economy, Culture, Design, and more — session submissions asked the fundamental question, ‘how does this impact humans and humanity?’”

He continued, “From these submissions, our programming team curated a broad coll

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