AI Vanguard Collective 2026 Q2 Event - Burning tokens: how to drive productivity gains without runaway costs?

Burning tokens: how to drive productivity gains without runaway costs? AI Vanguard Collective is hosting an invitation-only gathering (with food & drinks provided) of founders, builders, operators, and early-stage investors shaping real-world AI systems, for high-signal discussions to help you cut through the noise and focus on what’s real and actionable. Agenda: 5:30-6:15PM: Check-in + networking 6:15-7:30PM: Panel discussion - Burning Tokens, Chasing Productivity: What’s Actually Working?

As companies of all sizes encourage and even push employees to adopt AI tools and agents, usage and cost can grow quickly.

However substantial productivity gains remain elusive in most organizations, despite breathless claims of 10x or even 100x gains. Measuring productivity is notoriously hard in the first place, especially in the software field, where activity and output volume are poor proxies for real productivity and business value.

This panel explores where AI is actually moving the needle within organizations delivering software, how teams distinguish real productivity gains from activity metrics, and how companies leverage operational and technical levers such as workflow (re)design, org (re) design, context/tool orchestration, model routing, caching, evals, observability, and cost controls, etc. to drive productivity gains while keeping token costs under control.

Panel:Chi-Chao Chang - Advisor/Group VP at Indeed. VC advisor and startup board member. Engineering executive at Facebook and Yahoo. CTO/President at startups. Jinjing Liang - Cofounder/CEO at Stably AI (creator of open source project Orca). Cofounder/CEO of Lovecast. Engineer at Google. Raj Singh - VP of New Products at Mozilla. 4x exited VC-backed founder. Product executive at Salesforce. CEO and product/GTM executive at startups. Tianwei Yue - Cofounder/CEO at Mathos AI. Software development team lead at AI Racing Tech. Machine learning engineer at TikTok. Wade Chambers - Chief Engineering Officer at Amplitude. Startup advisor. Engineering executive at Twitter and Yahoo. CTO/Head of Engineering at startups. 7:30-8:30PM: Networking (open + curated 1-on-1s)