We are excited to announce the 2026 Protocol Symposium, the third edition of our flagship research and education event, devoted to the nascent discipline of protocol studies and the broader scene emerging around it.
The theme for the 2026 edition is New Nature – the rapidly evolving planet-scale technological layer governed by laws with a hardness and inviolability approaching those of nature. New Nature is our overarching frame for the technological future, shaped by the intersection of AI and protocols.
The symposium will be held fully online, September 21–25 (Monday–Friday), and comprise two workshop days and three days of talks.
Abstracts for talk and workshop proposals are both due by Sunday, June 14, midnight Pacific Time. You can find details and the submission form here.
If you’re interested in attending, registration will open in July, once abstracts are selected and the schedule is finalized. Subscribe to this newsletter to be alerted.
Special note: The Symposium will also feature an exciting track of programming based on our collaboration with the Long Now Foundation, via their Labs program. You still have time to apply for these two protocol-themed Labs, The Book of Time and Information Revolutions & Epistemic Crises. Deadline: June 5th.
Background context, topics of interest and details on some special resources follow. If you plan to submit an abstract, please read through the remaining sections.
We welcome and encourage submissions from people new to protocol studies. It is taking shape as a highly interdisciplinary field, and has already inherited ideas from many existing fields. If you’re coming in cold, we suggest diving into the Protocol Reader over a weekend and reflecting on whether ideas and topics you already understand well can be usefully cast into protocol studies frames.
Background
This will be the third Protocol Symposium, and the first to be held under the aegis of the newly formed Protocol Institute. The first two editions, in 2024 and 2025, were held under the aegis of the predecessor Summer of Protocols program. The 2024 symposium focused on protocol improvement challenges, while the 2025 symposium featured a foundations research workshop and an intensive protocol school.
On our YouTube channel, you can find all of the talks from the 2024 symposium, as well as the open-source course from 2025.
The 2024 and 2025 symposia only featured content from the summer program participants, but starting with the 2026 edition, we are opening up the event to all who are interested in presenting talks or conducting workshops.
Topics of Interest
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
The intersection of AI and protocols, especially cryptographic technologies
Evolution of human behavior in New Nature, cognitive ergonomics of AI use
Investigations into topics that have emerged as foundational over the last three years, such as memory, temporality, epistemology, trust experience (TX), hardness, stigmergy, and protocol lifecycles
Speculative forays into New Nature futures, through fiction, art, scenario planning, or workshop exercises
New Nature and planetarity, including topics such as climate protocols, terraforming, global governance, and space exploration
Theory and practice of protocol analysis, design, implementation, and field evolution
Explorations of tokenization in the three senses unfolding today (AI tokens, blockchain tokens, and identity/permissions tokens)
Capture resistance, plurality, cosmopolitanism, and the politics of protocols
Resources
We also have three unique resources available to those interested in participating:
SIGs: While not a requirement, we highly recommend aligning your talk or workshop proposal with one of our Special Interest Groups (SIGs) if possible. SIGs are the main vehicles for ongoing research and study at the Protocol Institute. You can participate in SIG activities (regular meetings and collaborative projects) on our Discord.
Archives and C3PO: For those new to protocols and protocol studies, we have an AI agent trained on the entire Protocol Institute/Summer of Protocols corpus called C3PO that you can chat with through a web interface, our Discord, or MCP, to help develop your talk or workshop idea. You can find our archives and the agent here.
Humboldt – our New Nature expert: We have a second AI agent, an Artificial Researcher, named Humboldt, currently autonomously researching New Nature themes. Humboldt is available to chat with on our Discord. Humboldt will present a talk at the symposium on its findings.
If you need help developing your idea for a talk or workshop, you can post in the #symposium-2026 channel on the Discord. PI staff and active community members are usually around to chat.
The Protocol Institute is an AI-native organization, and actively encourages AI use in all aspects of work we do and support. We encourage you to make use of AI to develop your workshop or talk ideas.
Sponsorship
We are looking for aligned sponsors for the 2026 Symposium. If your organization might be interested, please get in touch with us.