[BrentOzar]

> what stops me is the sudden drop in corporate sponsorship of them.

That's true in two ways: not only are less companies paying to send their attendees to training, but less companies are paying to sponsor these events as well.

[bonoboTP]

Even at AI research conferences the trend seems to be such (also fewer industry exhibits), though I'm not perfectly up to date on this, might have turned around very recently. The reason seems to be that they are not hiring as much right now.

I think this is a shorter-term trend in the economy though, it doesn't necessarily hold as much inertia as other factors. Unless the AI job replacement really works out the way many companies hope.