 CCC Blog CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC), in partnership with co-sponsor IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS), is excited to announce an upcoming two-day workshop designed to address the evolving future of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development. Beyond Code: Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems with AI at Scale brings together researchers across AI, software engineering, programming languages, cybersecurity, and systems engineering to address the evolving role of AI in developing not just isolated code, but complex and large-scale software systems.
The workshop will take place from February 25-26, 2026 at The Westin hotel in San Francisco, CA. There, participants will engage in panels, breakout group discussions, and report-writing alongside fellow experts, ultimately crafting a research roadmap identifying critical advancements to make this goal a reality — all while digging into the broader implications these advancements would have for the field.
Creating a Roadmap for AI’s Future
Beyond Code will center around envisioning the very future of AI software development, not just current breakthroughs. “I want every attendee to walk away with a clearer vision for how AI-powered development tools and the organizations that depend on them must transform to move beyond code…” says workshop organizing committee member Sebastian Elbaum, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Virginia School of Engineering & Applied Science. “At the end of the second day I hope we have sketched the skeleton of that revolution.”
To do so, Beyond Code includes an agenda of topics and activities designed to make the necessary next steps for the field concrete. It asks participants to work together to assess key challenges and goals in three main areas:
- Methodology: Improving the workflows, deployments, auditing, and runtimes of AI
- Tools: Making AI more secure and trustworthy
- Users: Improving accuracy in capturing user intent, balancing human ergonomics with machine capability, and evaluating how the human developer role shifts as systems are increasingly automated
Following a panel of visionary speakers on the first day, these three pillars will guide multiple sessions of creative, collaborative ideation. But Gabrielle Allen, organizing committee member and Professor at the University of Wyoming School of Computing, says the committee especially hopes to “spark a productive kind of excitement — where keynotes, panels, and working sessions move experts from industry, academia, national labs, and agencies beyond discussion.”
The final sessions of the workshop will thus focus on wrap-up documentation, informing the creation of a Beyond Code Workshop Report published by CCC in mid-2026 containing key recommendations for the research field, federal agencies, and industry. It’s an important moment for the CCC, whose aim is to catalyze computing experts and advance the field by helping realize these community-driven visions of the future.
The CCC and IEEE Computer Society look forward to welcoming members of the computing community to an energizing and inspiring workshop. To stay informed with any updates as well as the eventual release of the Beyond Code Workshop Report, keep an eye on the CCC blog and LinkedIn Spotlight Page.
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The Beyond Code workshop is co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society.
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award No. 2300842. This award supports the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), a programmatic committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA).
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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