AGS London 2026 – Louis Tanguay on What’s Actually on the Schedule
App Growth Summit London returns on Thursday, September 3rd, bringing more than 400+ hand-picked app growth professionals and over 30 speakers into one room for a single day; built around acquisition, retention, monetization, and everything AI is changing about the app growth industry.
Ahead of the event, we sat down with our Founder and CEO, Louis Tanguay, to talk through this year’s agenda, how it’s curated, and what he’s most looking forward to once the doors open!
An Invite-Only Room Built for Practitioners
App Growth Summit events have always been invite-only, and every attendee is vetted and hand-picked for quality and relevancy. This is a deliberate contrast to the open-registration, anyone-can-buy-a-ticket model most industry events default to. AGS events are not a trade-show floor with hundreds (or thousands) of strangers, free tote bags, and a schedule nobody really follows. AGS builds a room around expert practitioners instead.
Founders, C-levels, growth leads, product managers, all running growth at companies people already know. “We built a room of real practitioners,” Louis says, “everyone attending our events is a valued member of the app growth industry and relevant to the curated content on our stages.”
Add proper networking time and a dedicated meeting zone, built into the day rather than squeezed out for one more session slot, increases the value of the event through community connections. Immediately following the close of content, the crowd runs straight into The Riverside Social Happy Hour along the Thames River, looking up at the Tower Bridge. Perfect vibes to end a full day of never-before-seen content and best-in-class networking. The result? App Growth Summit events feel less like a conference, and closer to the best version of a community gathering of experts!
A Full-Funnel Schedule
This year’s agenda runs full-funnel, paid and organic UA, engagement and retention, monetization, with AI woven through all of it rather than boxed off into its own session.
More than 30 speakers are confirmed, from Soho House, Supercell, The Sole Supplier, Vinted, Just Eat Takeaway, and a long list of other names people will recognize the moment they see the lineup!
Built for Cross-Industry Conversations
“The best conversations at AGS rarely happen because everyone agrees,” Louis tells.
“They happen because someone running growth at a game studio hears something from someone running growth at a delivery app and realizes they’re solving the exact same problem from two different angles.” That’s by design.
The panels themselves are built to mix companies from very different worlds on purpose, gaming next to delivery next to fintech next to hospitality, a choice Louis says pays off in the room itself, not just on stage.
An AGS Exclusive: Rajat Dhawan Takes the Stage
The one session on this year’s agenda with no other conference appearance anywhere else belongs to Rajat Dhawan, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Soho House, speaking exclusively at AGS London. “Rajat isn’t doing any other conference this year,” Louis notes, “so this is the only place to hear it!”
His session covers Soho House’s shift from a traditional hospitality model into a tech-first one, including the rollout of House Pay and where the company is headed next, the AI-powered interfaces being built to personalize the member experience across every Soho House property worldwide.
It’s a different kind of growth story than most of what’s on the schedule, coming from a brand most attendees wouldn’t immediately associate with app growth at all.
How the Room Gets Curated
The speaker list draws from a wide range of verticals rather than letting one industry dominate the stage, and the event’s sponsor tiers are companies already in that industry, chosen deliberately rather than opened to anyone willing to write a check.
Attendance stays capped on purpose too, well below what a bigger, ticketed-for-scale event would run. “We could sell more tickets,” Louis says. “We choose not to, because the room only works if everyone in it is someone worth talking to.”
What Won’t Change as AGS Grows
Two things Louis is clear haven’t moved and won’t, the practitioner-first, limited-sponsor lineup, and the networking time built into every agenda. It would be easy to squeeze in one more session slot every time AGS adds a city, but as Louis puts it, “that time exists for a reason. We’ve never cut it to fit more content in.”
AI Across the Schedule
AI isn’t confined to one block on the schedule. The day opens with Colin Hodge’s session, “Our AI Cookbook: What Cooked, What Got Smoked…”, covering what’s worked with AI across marketing, product, and ops, and what hasn’t.
Maria Kardakova’s session tackles AI trust directly, building a responsible AI nutrition assistant users can trust. The closing panel, “Scaling Creative,” covers how AI and smarter testing keep creative performance moving, and Rajat Dhawan’s keynote brings AI-powered personalization into the conversation from outside standard app marketing altogether.
“AI shows up as a working tool inside sessions on acquisition, product, and creative, wherever it’s genuinely relevant,” Louis explains, “not sitting off to one side as its own track.”
The Day Follows the Growth Funnel
The morning opens with Colin Hodge on AI, followed by Toni van Zütphen from Snap, then Viktor Orlov on Apple Ads, then a food-delivery UA case study from Just Eat Takeaway and Bidease, closing into two panels, “Finding the Next UA Advantage” and “Organic by Design.” Midday shifts into “The New Monetization Playbook” panel and Noa Gutterman’s session on user-led growth at Mistplay.
The afternoon moves into community and retention with George Sullivan and Gregoire Mercier, the full engagement and CRM panel, the Soho House keynote, and closes on a creative and AI panel.
“The whole structure mirrors the actual growth funnel, discovery, user journey, monetization,” Louis says, “instead of treating any of it like a separate topic.”
Monetization Gets Its Own Spotlight
“The New Monetization Playbook: Paywalls, Web Funnels and Making £€$” brings together Twinkl Parents, Praktika, Ganddee, and FastSpring, sitting right after the morning’s UA and acquisition sessions on purpose. Once someone’s acquired, monetization is the next question, and Louis points to a broader shift underway across the industry. “The conversation has shifted from how do we get users toward how do we make the users we already have worth more,” he says.
The panel pairs naturally with Noa Gutterman’s session too, built around the idea that some of the best growth ideas never come from a marketing team at all, they come from listening to the people already using the product.
Community and Retention Get Real Stage Time
“Turning Community Into Retention” brings George Sullivan, CEO of The Sole Supplier, together with Gregoire Mercier, CEO of Octopus Community, to the full engagement and CRM panel with ManyPets, Vinted, Sumup, and Collctiv, covering everything from onboarding through the relationships that last. It sits right after two sessions built around listening to users, and Louis sees a clear line connecting them. “There’s a clear throughline from hearing what people want to keeping them,” he says.
Acquisition costs keep climbing across the industry, and more of this year’s agenda is rightly built around what happens once someone’s already installed the app, well past the moment they first showed up.
End on a High Note!
After a day dedicated to full-funnel, highly curated content, it’s time to relax in style! “What I’m looking forward to just as much is everything around the sessions, good moments, good people, a lot of real socializing. That’s still the whole point of AGS! Learn from each other, make lasting connections… and have fun doing it!”
AGS London runs September 3rd at the Tower Hotel, and the agenda above is just the start of it. Request your invite to AGS London now while seats are still open!
London isn’t the only stop this year either. Check the full App Growth Summit event calendar to see which other invite-only rooms are coming up next.
