The B2BNN team will be at Elevate again this year; email info@b2bnn.com to set up a pitch or an interview. Tickets for the conference are still available here.
Elevate returns to downtown Toronto October 7–9, 2025, promising 10,000+ attendees and a program that leans strongly into AI, product, and the startup–investor handshake. Organizers have confirmed headliners from OpenAI, YouTube, Shopify, Oura, Food52, Meta, Snowflake, Cohere, plus film/TV talent and public leaders to broaden the conversation.
The AI/statecraft beat
The most high-profile addition is Chris Lehane (Chief Global Affairs Officer, OpenAI): expect a candid readout on AI policy, geopolitics, and the enterprise adoption curve heading into 2026. If you’re selling into CIOs or building on frontier models, Lehane’s brief offers signal on where regulatory and platform incentives are moving.
Platform power & creator distribution
Andrew Peterson (Head of Canada, YouTube) is slated to unpack YouTube’s growth vectors (short-form, shopping, and creator monetization) and what that means for brands and startups trying to arbitrage attention without burning paid budgets. Watch for discussion on retail integrations and AI-generated content guardrails.
Commerce, product, and the Canadian scale story
Harley Finkelstein (President, Shopify) remains a draw for operators who want practical playbooks on commerce infra, partnerships, and app-ecosystem opportunities. With consumer spend fragmenting and checkout wars heating up, this session should surface tactical advice for B2B vendors hitching to Shopify’s wagon.
Biometric tech goes mainstream
From the wearables front, Dorothy Kilroy (Chief Commercial Officer, Oura) will speak to the enterprise side of biometrics including HR benefits, employee wellness, and data interoperability. If you’re building health adjacencies (insurtech, employer benefits, coaching platforms), this is the interoperability conversation to catch.
Media operators in the platform era
Erika Ayers Badan (CEO, Food52; ex-Barstool Sports) brings an operator’s view of community, commerce, and content economics. Expect a frank take on building durable media brands post-third-party cookies, and how audience trust is being productized.
Founders, funds, and the AI stack
Elevate’s agenda highlights Cohere and Snowflake voices alongside Meta, a cross-section that should yield practical guidance on where to run AI workloads (and what it costs), RAG vs. fine-tuning trade-offs, and how enterprise buyers are evaluating safety and sovereignty in 2026 budgets. For startups, the value is in hearing these stacks debated on the same stage.
Civic lens and the Toronto context
Toronto’s Mayor Olivia Chow is on the speaker list, signaling programming that ties talent pipelines, urban policy, and tech’s role in the city’s growth narrative. If you’re hiring internationally or navigating municipal partnerships, this is where incentives and procurement updates often surface.
Culture meets innovation
Actor and writer Simu Liu is in the lineup, a reminder that Elevate likes to bridge pop culture and product. These sessions tend to hit storytelling, fandom economics, and personal brand leverage, useful fodder for consumer founders and marketing leads.
Why this year feels bigger
The official site bills Elevate as a “national tech and innovation festival,” but 2025’s curation reads more global and operator-forward than previous years. The mix: frontier AI policy (OpenAI), platform distribution (YouTube), commerce infra (Shopify), and bio-wearables (Oura) maps to where Canadian founders are actually spending (and raising) right now. Expect concentrated networking around AI tooling, creator commerce, and health data plays.
What to prioritize for biggest conference impact
- AI policy & enterprise adoption (Lehane/OpenAI): regulatory path + platform strategy in one sitting.
- Distribution deep-dive (YouTube): shorts, shoppable, and creator partnerships for B2B funnels.
- Commerce infra (Shopify): partner and app-store routes to revenue.
- Wearables x enterprise (Oura): data standards, privacy, and HR adoption.
- City/innovation policy (Mayor Chow): incentives, procurement, and talent.
Bottom line: Elevate 2025 is engineered for globally focused operators, building on last year’s mix of practicality and futurecasting. The conference evolution is impressive, and this year promises fewer platitudes and more platform leaders you actually build on. If you’re juggling meetings, structure your time around OpenAI/YouTube/Shopify/Oura, then swing through the investor-founder programming and main-stage moments for the serendipity you can’t get on Zoom.
