Manchester · Bally's Interactive
Hosted by Practically AI: Applied AI for Software Engineers Manchester
Explore agentic payments and production AI engineering at this practical, in-person meetup in Manchester on 19 November 2026. Hosted at Bally’s Interactive, the evening features two technical talks showing how AI is moving beyond experimentation into real-world systems operating at scale. Expect practical insights, honest engineering lessons and no sales pitches. Talks and topics The Rise of Agentic Payments, Luke Grayland, Senior Software Developer at Conferma Discover how autonomous agents could book travel, buy computing resources and manage transactions. Luke will examine payment authorisation, identity, consent and trust; the layers of the agentic payments stack; Google AP2, Mastercard Agent Pay and Visa Intelligent Commerce; the role of virtual cards; and unresolved questions around disputes, liability and merchant verification. AI Engineering at Scale, Alastair Jepps, VP Technology at Bally’s Interactive Alastair will explain how Bally’s Intralot delivers behaviour-driven personalisation across 700,000 players and five casino brands. The talk covers scalable personalised experiences, cost-effective AI, semantic matching and classical machine learning, evaluations, error analysis, A/B testing and contextual bandits. The programme also includes the meetup’s regular AI Spotlight, highlighting notable AI tools, ideas and developments. Schedule and audience Doors open at 18:00 GMT for pizza, drinks and networking, followed by introductions, the AI Spotlight and both talks. The event closes at 20:00; timings may change slightly. This meetup is designed for software engineers, technology professionals, people building production AI systems and anyone curious about practical AI. It is organised by Practically AI: Applied AI for Software Engineers Manchester. Venue: Bally’s Interactive, 60 Spring Gardens, Manchester M2 2BQ. Date: Thursday 19 November 2026, 18:00–20:00 GMT. Register for this event
Sponsors: Bally's Interactive
