SaaS North rebrands to emphasize AI as annual tech conference marks 10th anniversary

SaaS North, the annual software-as-a-service conference hosted in Ottawa, is rebranding to emphasize artificial intelligence as it enters its 10th year and reflects a sea change in the tech industry.

The conference began in fall 2016 when David Tyldesley's conference production firm, Cube Business Media, partnered with L-Spark, a Kanata-based startup accelerator. That first year drew about 400 attendees from 200 companies. Today, the event attracts over 2,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and industry insiders from more than 500 companies to Rogers Centre Ottawa each November.

In February 2026, organizers added "AI" to the event's name to reflect the growing emphasis on artificial intelligence. "As an entrepreneur, you've got to always be evolving, always adapting," Tyldesley said. "SaaS is changing."

This November's gathering will lean heavily into AI-related topics such as costing models and tokenomics — the study of how to maximize value from "tokens," the pieces of text or data that AI models read and generate. Since most AI tools and services measure and bill usage by the number of tokens processed, SaaS companies must weigh their costs and benefits.

"It's all changing so rapidly," Tyldesley said. "We knew that the conference had to continue to evolve." A decade ago, when Tyldesley first conceived the conference, OpenAI and ChatGPT were still in their infancy, and Ottawa AI companies like MindBridge Analytics were still refining their fraud-detection platforms. Today, AI capability is mainstream, shifting the priorities of software leaders across the country.