I spent 22 and 23 September at MicroConf Europe 2026 at Harpa, on the Reykjavik waterfront. What follows is what I posted from the talks as they happened, in order, with my photos. Posts from the days before the conference are in an appendix at the end. Times are Reykjavik time, and each post links to the original on X.
My roundtable notes AI Delegation: What Founders Hand Off and What They Keep What forty founders hand to agents across sales, marketing, engineering and support, and the two jobs nobody automated.Day one: Tuesday, 22 September
Kicking off MicroConf Reykjavík with Rob Walling
Aleyda Solis: SEO and AI search for B2B SaaS
First up, Aleyda Solis talks SEO and AI search for B2B SaaS
Users aren’t ditching search for AI. They’re using them together.
Good SEO is also good GEO. We need to shift how we do things day to day to maximize our chances.
Create content for topical completeness, not keywords.
You want to create comprehensive content that will help your actual customers.
Q: Do AI tells impact content rankings? A: Yes, there is evidence that AI generated content tends to fall in rankings after the initial indexing. You need to add a human layer and differentiation to your content.
Jacob Wright
A great product improves your conversion rates.
People aren’t looking for a human-computer interface, they’re looking for a human to human connection.
George Chasiotas: ranking on ChatGPT
Next up, George Chasiotas will share how to rank on ChatGPT.
Backlinks aren’t as relevant today. They’re a part of perception.
You should cover your topic breadth and depth, but you shouldn’t go against your business model. If you’re not a review site, mass comparative content can backfire.
Move from crawl efficiency to agent consumption efficiency. Design for agent experience and perception.
Day two: Wednesday, 23 September
Kicking off the final day of MicroConf
Rob Walling: the eight moats in the age of AI
First up, the eight moats in the age of AI.
AI is a bigger problem than you think.
Supply and demand still apply to SaaS. AI is a supply shock.
AI will create a demand Shock. What if your customers go out of business?
E.g., transcription agencies.
What if the artifact is going away? For instance, seats in a customer support platform.
The old-fashioned moats.
AI has decimated the traditional moats.
Strategic buyers are really scared that you might not be around in 3-5 years. That fear prevents them from paying the old multiples. – Einar Vollset
The first AI moat: buyers know and trust you.
Second ai moat: you’re a system of record.
Third ai moat: you’re allowed to act. Your software is more than just advice.
Moat five: someone official already said yes. E.g., certifications, regulators, licenses.
Moat six: everybody’s already in it.
Moat seven: every customer makes you smarter.
Final moat: it’s hard to keep running.
That thing that you hate and resent can actually be a moat.
The moat checklist.
Is hardware a moat? Yes.
AI will take 10-20% of existing saas businesses to zero.
AI Workshop for CEOs
Rob's eight moats are a checklist. The workshop applies it to your company: where AI eats your moat, where it deepens yours, and what to ship next. Three hours live with up to eight CEOs, plus a 1-on-1.
Reserve Your Seat →Laure Jourmier: SaaS for non-SaaS customers
Next up, building SaaS for non-SaaS customers.
There is a preference for output-based pricing for non-desk-based workers.
Agnese Jaunošāne: 350k users organically
Next up we’ll learn how to get 350k users organically using AI.
Ajelix used niche AI tools as a SEO play to get attention.
Ajelix made lots of listicles - they do convert. They’re human made, not AI slop. “Every listicle tells AI who you are.”
Ajelix has found PR newswire effective to get their message out.
Einar Vollset: how to unfuck your SaaS
Next up: how to unfuck your SaaS.
You have to move faster.
You have to move into labor markets. Labor budgets are much bigger than software budgets.
If your SaaS asks your customer employees to push buttons to get an outcome, someone will simply sell them the outcome. It may as well be you.
Everyone gets AI. There isn’t defensibility in this.
Building using AI is table stakes.
You need to build a learning loop that isn’t exportable or easy to simulate and that applies across all your customers.
The SaaS has to become the worker.
You should start with a painful manual workflow and trial that.
Some of these agentic applications require a supervisory pane that handles exceptions and corner cases. You can't just have 500 agents and say “good luck!”
In April, May, there were a few companies that got zero bids. That never happens; it was bad. But now PE is starting to brag, and that's a good sign.
My roundtables: AI inside the business
At 2:00 PM I hosted two roundtables, with about twenty founders at each table. The subject was AI inside the business rather than AI in the product. I didn't post during them. The write-up, under the Chatham House Rule, is AI Delegation: What Founders Hand Off and What They Keep.
SaaS Institute
Next, @tracymakes and @alexmcquade share a bit about the SaaS Institute.
Corey Haines: marketing like an engineer
Finally, we’ll learn how to market like an engineer.
The bad news? You still have to do marketing. The good news? It’s more similar to engineering than ever.
This year’s MicroConf venue is off the hook.
Google loves programmatically generated pages. Yes, they penalize thin content; we’re building rich pages.
Your marketing should be super repeatable. Make everything standardized.
The four ingredients for an AI skill.
Don’t write skills. Record them.
Most people bring AI in “the loop.” But you want to make AI to do most of the work, not the human. Instead have AI bring the human into the loop.
Appendix: Iceland before the conference
You can’t spell Iceland without AI, so I’m checking things out before MicroConf.
This Icelandic pony heard I was attending MicroConf, and started pitching her vibe-coded SaaS. She already has a term sheet. It’s over folks. Even the ponies have AI now.
I can’t walk along the beach without strangers demanding answers to one of four questions:
Will AI let me build a passive business?
Will AI destroy my SaaS business?
Is AI really going to kill us all?
Should I use Claude, Codex, or this Jev thing?
“I replaced my team with agents. Codex is just easier to deal with than humans.”