Local AI Changes Everything

Explore local AI and production agentic systems at GenAI Montréal’s in-person meetup on 8 September 2026 at Mirego in Montreal. This practical evening is built for developers and AI enthusiasts who want to understand what happens when capable models move from the cloud onto personal hardware,and how agentic systems perform beyond prototypes. No data science background is required. Expect experience-led talks focused on real constraints, production lessons and the technologies that genuinely work. ## What’s happening Doors open at 6:00 PM EDT at Mirego, 1195 Rue Wellington. The event begins with networking among members of GenAI Montréal, followed at 6:30 PM by a welcome, an introduction to the community, a spotlight on the next /dev/mtl Conference and an overview of the evening. Talks start at 6:45 PM. ### A Journey to Local AI Jean-François René, founder of Squid-OS and former ScalePad CTO, will share his hands-on path into local AI. Rather than presenting another benchmark comparison, he will examine the practical realities of running open-weight models on consumer hardware, including: - Quantisation, context windows and inference engines - Tool calling and reusable model skills - The effect of low latency on human-computer interaction - Reducing token use and avoiding unnecessarily complex AI harnesses - The changing boundaries between coding, operating-system and production agents The session traces how these experiments led to Squid-OS, an open-source, local-first AI harness and agent runtime. It will cover both what works and what local models still struggle with, while asking what becomes possible when AI lives directly on your computer. ### Building intelligent systems in production Mirego’s “Agentic , Our Experience Building Intelligent Systems” session turns to the design and deployment of agentic systems. Drawing on the company’s hands-on production work, the presentation will explore what succeeded, what failed and what the team learned. Attendees should gain a clearer framework for deciding when agentic technology is appropriate, when it is not and how to implement it effectively. ## Who should attend?… Register for this event