PS/NExT wrapped up yesterday — a day and a half at the Palm Springs Convention Center, fifty speakers plus, a few hundred people in lanyards asking each other if they'd tried the new AI model, tool, generative thing. Some even talked about Fable.

I was there. I had a sponsor’s table. I talked to everyone who saw me kicking around those official (read: money-making for FIFA, not me), World Cup footballs, which by the way were great ice-breakers and really should be my standard operating procedure every four years.

Here's what I will say about PS/NExT, and then I'm moving on: they do awareness well. A big rock in a pond. A real splash. One year ago almost to the day, the first version of this event put a pin in the map and said AI is part of Palm Springs' future. Congrats.

One thing I will comment on though, something I noticed from my booth: the letters A and I are no longer in the name. Last year it was the Palm Springs AI & Creativity Expo. This year it's PS/NExT — New Experiences in Technology.

I understand the instinct. Palm Springs is an arts and culture town. AI has a complicated reputation in creative communities right now — if you've been to any graduation ceremony this spring you know exactly what kind of room you're walking into when you lead with those two letters. And let’s not get started with the data center sentiment in the valleys - both Coachella and Imperial.

Threading that needle is genuinely hard. Still I'm curious whether removing the word from the marquee makes the conversation easier or just moves the tension somewhere else.

What I do know is that the word isn't going away, the technology isn't going away, and at some point the conversation has to happen whether or not it's in the title.

I'm keeping mine though - AI Coachella Valley. The AI because I want to have the conversation, the promise and the peril. Coachella Valley because this affects all of us.

Here's the honest contrast: PS/NExT is a splash. One event, once a year, big stage, Palm Springs. That's the model. My model is different. AICV covers the nine cities. We run things more frequently — once a quarter, once a month, once a week.

One splash versus many ripples. Both have their place. I just happen to believe the ripples compound.

From the main stage, the message was clear: here is what this technology can do, here is how to use it well, here’s how you keep humans in the loop, here is the promise. Good sessions. Real energy.

My booth was where I heard folks say the other thing.

A year in, actively experimenting, genuinely trying — a lot of them are running into brick walls. The AI role is not a new role, it’s just another job landed on top of the original job with no new title or pay raise. One of my visitors said out loud what several others were clearly thinking: sometimes I wonder if it was just easier before. The data center questions, the copyright questions, the environmental questions — all of it lurking underneath.

And then I heard about the woman in one of the breakouts. She stood up. She wanted the room to get to ask questions, not just absorb whatever the panel had decided to say. She didn't get the chance.

I get it. Keynotes are for keynoting. Panels have agendas. There's no time for the question that's been sitting with someone since the coffee was taken away. That's just the physics of this kind of event.

But then again, she didn't show up to watch people talk at her. She came because she had something to say and wanted to be part of the conversation. And that gap — between what a conference can hold and what people actually need — is the whole reason it's time to get to work.

There are many things happening in the world of AICV, but let me ask you to keep these three on your radar. One of them involves free lunch.

Saturday Morning AI:

Saturday Morning AI workshops are back. Starting July 18th, once a month through December, underwritten by the fine folks at the ERC in Palm Desert. Our local HeyGen ambassador is kicking things off with a three-hour AI Avatar workshop — for anyone who needs to make video content and has neither the time nor the budget nor the patience for a production crew. Bring your laptop. Bring the thing you're stuck on. I'll provide lunch. Yes, the free food is deliberate. luma.com/aicv.

AIQnA — one question a week:

The valley needs to hear from more people. AIQnA.org asks the Coachella Valley one question a week about AI and the issues shaping the region. You have a short conversation with Sage — an AI agent built by Claude — and your response gets synthesized into a Friday snapshot that goes to media partners and anyone tracking community sentiment. Not a survey. A conversation. This week's question is about PS/NExT: if you were there, how do you actually think and feel about AI in the Coachella Valley right now? Three minutes. Free. Anonymous. aiqna.org.

AI Tinkerers: Coachella Valley:

This is the one I'm most excited about.

The developers are out here. They're working for larger enterprises locally or remotely for companies in San Francisco and Seattle, building things in home studios, largely invisible to each other. That technical community — the software engineers, the systems architects, the people who know how the plumbing actually works — has been the missing piece every single time the valley tries to have a serious conversation about building a startup ecosystem (ask Deepak, he has a tech community with over 140 members - they’re here, just all over the place).

In the end, you can run all the workshops and keynotes you want — at some point you need the people who can actually build and maintain the thing.

AI Tinkerers is the world's largest hands-on AI builder community. 243 cities. 113,000 members. One rule: show working code or walk through how you built it. No decks. No pitches. No recruiters. Screened attendees, demo-first, real projects. The founding analogy is the Homebrew Computer Club. Many of the most promising AI startups in the world first found their community at Tinkerers meetups before they were startups.

I've been asked to co-organize the Coachella Valley chapter alongside Craig Rhodes, who you'll meet soon enough. If you're a developer or builder, visit aitinkerers.org and sign-up. We'll have launch announcements through the summer.

PS/NExT made a splash. It inspired people, got them thinking, put AI on the agenda for a room full of folks who needed it on their agenda. Genuinely. Kudos.

AICV is the part that happens next. Not because we have all the answers — we don't. The world of AI is moving fast enough that last week's answer is already slightly wrong. What we do have is the connections — to the tech companies, the engineers, the vibe coders, the people who know what's coming before the Coachella Valley gets to read about it. And we have the intention to keep showing up every week. In workshops. In experiments. In newsletters. In rooms where the question that didn't get asked at the panel actually gets asked.

Come join us. Tell a friend who'd find value in the conversation. And let's not wait another year before we do this again.

Until next time. This is Sat with SunshineFM.

Sat Singh runs AICV and SunshineFM from Rancho Mirage. He had an exhibition table at PS/NExT, ate the ginger thai chicken bowl, and has opinions about what happens next.

Please pass this along to somebody in the valley who'd benefit. This is a community project — it grows the way communities do, one conversation at a time.