# 3,000 Tech Groups, One Message: How Brian Turcotte used an AI agent to fill a 12,313-person free AI conference

Brian Turcotte ran speaker operations for All Day AI, a free, online, 16-hour event with no vendor pitches that went from 100 registrations on August 25 to 12,313 registrants on October 22, 2026. His biggest growth lever was one idea: he asked his Dot, an OpenAI agent, to reach out to 3,000 tech groups, hackathons and events with a free deal. Tell your community about the event, and he would put their logo, link and CTA on the event website. Hundreds responded, and he attributes 20-30% of registrations to that one message, based on rough estimates of community sizes. The same agent handled speaker communication for 140 speakers, with him in the loop on every outgoing message.

| | |
|---|---|
| **Who** | Brian Turcotte, developer relations at Kilo Code, who took on speaker operations for All Day AI. X: [@coldopn](https://x.com/coldopn) (verified 2026-11-10: display name Brian Turcotte, bio "Developer Relations @ Kilo Code", links kilo.ai) |
| **Problem** | Reaching more than 10,000 registrants and 120+ speakers in about two months, starting with no community, no speakers, no website and no social presence |
| **Stack** | OpenAI Dots (agent with access to Google Drive sheets and image collections and browser access to Zuddl), Kilo Code and the Kilo CLI, the OpenAI image API, GitHub, Vercel, Cloudflare, Zuddl, Instinct (read-only inbox alerts) |
| **Confidence** | Medium (first-person, dated counts; outreach attribution is his rough estimate; published on Kilo's blog) |
| **Last verified** | 2026-11-10 |

## The problem
The website went up in August and the event was set for October 22. The goals were more than 10,000 registrants, more than 120 practitioner-led sessions, 4 tracks and a surviving Discord community. He writes that they were starting from zero: "Every registrant and every speaker had to come from something we built or someone we reached in those two months." On August 25 they had 100 registrations and 12 speaker submissions.

## The blueprint (as he describes it)
1. **A free offer that cost nobody anything.** On a weekday in September he asked his Dot to reach out to 3,000 tech groups, hackathons and events around the world. The deal: tell your community about All Day AI, and he would put their logo, link and CTA on the website.
2. **Community partners take over distribution.** Partnerships expanded through groups including AWT and NumFOCUS from mid-September.
3. **One agent as the speaker operations system.** He gave the Dot provisional access to Google Drive assets like the schedule and moderation Sheets and image collections, plus browser access to certain Zuddl lists and event settings. It sent blasts and personalized speaker links, updated Zuddl profiles and managed moderation schedules. "I stayed in the loop for every outgoing message."
4. **The site stays in sync.** He let the Dot use the Kilo CLI on his computer to make site changes. When speaker information changed or he approved a new cohort, the Dot had Kilo update the site.
5. **Matching speaker art.** He worked out a vintage concert-poster look in ChatGPT, then built a small app in Kilo Code that applied it to every headshot through the OpenAI image API.
6. **Inbox triage for the day job.** He gave Instinct read-only access to his inbox and asked it to ping him about urgent work items outside the event.

## Stated results
- 12,313 registrants, 140 speakers and an average watch time of more than 6 hours.
- Registrations by date: 100 (August 25), 2,725 (September 28), 5,864 (October 12), almost 8,900 (October 16), 9,961 (October 18) and 12,313 at the event.
- The partner outreach: "Hundreds responded." He would "safely attribute 20-30% of our registrations to that one message," based on rough estimates of community sizes.
- Version 1 of the website cost about $5.

## Caveats
- The 20-30% share is his rough estimate, not tracked attribution.
- The post is on Kilo's blog and features Kilo Code, where he works in developer relations.
- The core team had more than 20 volunteers. The outreach agent was one part of a team effort.
- He used his work email for speaker communication and writes that next year he would use a dedicated speaker inbox.
- The stress came in the last ten days: speaker-access issues, late moderation schedules and a near outage from a hosting payment warning.
- Handles: X @coldopn (verified 2026-11-10 by name, Kilo Code role and kilo.ai link). No Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, TikTok or Mastodon account found.

## FAQ
### How did Brian Turcotte use an AI agent to promote All Day AI?
He asked his Dot, an OpenAI agent, to reach out to 3,000 tech groups, hackathons and events with a free offer: share the event with your community and get your logo, link and CTA on the website. Hundreds responded.

### How much of the event's registration came from that outreach?
He attributes 20-30% of registrations to that one message, based on rough estimates of community sizes. The event finished with 12,313 registrants.

### Did the agent send messages without review?
For speaker communication, he stayed in the loop for every outgoing message.

### What would he change next time?
Earlier and more frequent speaker operations, platform training for moderators before the rehearsal, and a dedicated speaker inbox instead of his work email.

## Sources
- https://blog.kilo.ai/p/adai (primary: first-person retrospective by Brian Turcotte, Oct 29, 2026)
- https://dev.to/kilocode/open-sourcing-the-playbook-behind-all-day-ai-a-12000-attendee-conference-9p3 (cross-post, Nov 5, 2026)
- https://x.com/coldopn (identity)

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