Where is Scala heading next?

Where is Scala heading next?

*Scala Meetup Chicago: Fresh Insights Straight from Scala Days 2026*

Join us in Chicago for a special Scala community meetup, proudly sponsored by VirtusLab, as we bring the biggest conversations and fresh perspectives straight from Scala Days Berlin 2026 to Chicago. We’ll dig into the questions that actually matter for Scala’s future:

What does Scala look like in the age of AI? Can its type system, functional programming foundations, and JVM ecosystem give it an edge in the new AI-native software landscape?

Scala 2 → Scala 3: are we finally there? What have we learned from real-world migrations, what’s still holding teams back, and when does staying on Scala 2 become the bigger risk?

Is Scala growing, evolving or slowly disappearing? Let’s look beyond the hot takes and talk honestly about adoption, the health of the ecosystem, the community, and where Scala can still win.

And where does the ecosystem go from here? New tooling, libraries, developer experience, AI-assisted development, new use cases and the opportunities that could define Scala’s next chapter.

Expect fresh insights from Scala Days Berlin, perspectives from people actively shaping the ecosystem, and an open conversation about what the next few years could mean for Scala developers and companies betting on the technology.

No nostalgia. No “Scala is dead” clickbait. Just a serious conversation about where Scala is going next and who’s going to shape it.

Come for the ideas. Stay for the community. Help shape what comes next.

Event details

📍 Location: Chicago Venue: 222 N LaSalle St, STE 1520, Chicago, IL 60601 📅 Date: October 22, 2026 (Thursday) 🎤 Format: Talks + networking + community discussions

Speakers & Talks

Adam Warski [Adam Warski](mailto:adam.warski@virtuslab.com)

Bio: I am the co-founder of SoftwareMill, head of R&D at VirtusLab, where I primarily generate code using Java, Scala, Rust and other interesting technologies. I am actively involved in open-source projects, such as Ox, Jox, Tapir, sttp, and others. I have also been a speaker at major conferences, including JavaOne, Devoxx, GeeCON and ScalaDays. In addition to writing closed- and open-source software, I spend my free time exploring various programming-related subjects. Any ideas or insights I gain usually end up with a blog (https://warski.org/articles).

*Talk title:* Where Scala meets AI

*Abstract:* The AI revolution raises questions about the utility of various technologies, especially programming languages. And when it comes to developer experience, Scala might have just the right answers.

We'll take a tour of how to use Scala efficiently for and with AI. We'll start by augmenting existing Scala development workflows with AI, leveraging Metals MCP and Cellar. Next, we'll teach AIs to write better Scala and more functional code. A short Scala skill makes a whole lot of difference in the quality of the generated code. Here we'll focus on the direct-style-Scala skill we've been developing, highlighting the main challenges that AI faced in our experiments.

We'll finish by looking at applications: using Scala to orchestrate coding agents and to orchestrate arbitrary business workflows. These are two broad categories. First, we'll take a hands-on look at Orca, which offers an API for setting up deterministic, AI-driven development flows.

For the second, we'll see how sttp-ai and chimp work together to provide the necessary Scala tooling to use AI models in your applications: talking to OpenAI/Claude APIs, running an agentic loop, using structured inputs & outputs. One theme will be constant: leaning on type safety and Scala's toolchain to deliver business value not only faster, but also with more reliability.

In each case, we'll show where Scala is better suited than alternatives for the problem at hand - and where it loses to the competition. Our goal will be to answer the question: in the age of AI, where does Scala have the upper hand?

Łukasz…