Burning Heroes: best AI papers from AAAI 2026

​🔥 At Burning Heroes, we're experimenting with a new experts discussion format focused on trending AI research topics.

​At the end of January, one of the most important AI events of the year took place - AAAI-26 in Singapore. A wide range of AI research topics from the Asian AI ecosystem were presented there, including paths toward AGI, AI for Science (AI4Science), embodied agents, and new agentic AI scaffolds and benchmarks.

This session we're trying a "Sell vs Grill" format. Vlad picks 10 papers and argues for each one, Ilya grills them. We present them live, then open it up to a group vote - "Was it useful for you as a tech founder to know about this work?" You decide: Sold or Grilled?
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⏱ If time allows, we'll also explore papers interactively through a pre-vibe-coded agentic retrieval app built over an index of 1,058 conference papers.
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🎙 Hosts

• Vlad Vinogradov - Co-Founder & CTO at Bioptic, ex-Intel, Kaggle Master
• Ilya Makarov, PhD - Head of iMak AI Lab, Principal AI Engineering Manager with experience in leading AI labs (Samsung, Huawei), winner of the Yandex ML Prize

📅📍 Time & Location

Thu, Mar 5, 10:00–11:30 AM PT

Join us to debate and explore the most exciting ideas emerging from AAAI-26.