Last week, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) teamed up with the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) to host the AI-centered visioning workshop Beyond Code: Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems with AI at Scale. Held at The Westin hotel in San Francisco, CA from February 25-26, 2026, this workshop brought together dozens of experts who work with artificial intelligence in different capacities. The goal was to better understand the current impacts of AI and lay out a roadmap for transforming it — responsibly — into something that can craft not only individual pieces of code, but complex and interdependent computing systems.
Working alongside CCC staff, the workshop was organized by an inspired team comprising of: Gabrielle Allen (University of Wyoming), Randal Burns (Johns Hopkins University), Sebastian Elbaum (University of Virginia), William Gropp (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Manish Parashar (University of Utah), Nils Aschenbruck (IEEE-CS, Osnabrück University), Terry Benzel (IEEE-CS, University of Southern California), and Rick Kazman (IEEE-CS, University of Hawaii). Their organizing efforts were made possible by the generous support of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Fostering Generative Discussion
Through a mix of panels, Q&As, plenary conversation, and small, discussion-heavy breakout sessions, participants had the opportunity to both constantly learn from each other as well as contribute their own expertise to the conversation. With Beyond Code attendees representing a variety of sectors — including academia, industry, government, and NGOs — it led to an enriching experience that brought many perspectives to the table.
Throughout the workshop, participants and speakers touched on a number of timely topics, such as:
- Potential changes in the role of the computer scientist
- Educating future computer scientists to meet this evolving field
- Improving the human-AI relationship
- Making AI output more trustworthy and reliable
- Navigating accountability in the AI landscape
From the most technical conversations about how to actually improve AI output to more meta discussions about its increasing role in our everyday lives, it was clear that scaling AI has more than just technological impacts.
A Roadmap for the Future of AI
These subjects, and more, will be explored fully in a forthcoming CCC-published workshop report. The report is anticipated to be released in 2027, synthesizing the many ideas and explorations of the workshop into a concrete set of recommended computing research and policy directions.
We also invite all members of the computing community to participate in the AI conversation from wherever you are. CCC recently launched the AI Research Ecosystem discussion forum, designed to assess the biggest challenges facing AI research today. We need your input to gauge which challenges are weighing most heavily on the community so that we can better help to address them.
Stay tuned to the CCC Blog and the CCC LinkedIn Showcase Page for updates and the Beyond Code workshop report’s release. Stay connected with CCC for the latest insights, publications, and opportunities to engage by subscribing here.
