Events

SLOAI x Google: Search & Reasoning - Damir Sabol & Dr. Marko Velić

Past

Damir Sabol & Dr. Marko Velić (Google) on LLM-powered Search and the science of reasoning in AI models.

When:
Thursday, 18 June 2026
Where:
Grand Plaza Hotel & Congress Center, Ljubljana, 60 Slovenska cesta, 1000 Ljubljana

What to expect

Two talks from Google engineers on LLM-powered Search and reasoning in AI models, plus Q&A and networking. Open to engineers, researchers, founders, and anyone seriously interested in how AI is built today. Organised by SLOAI and *codeplain.

Talks

Damir Sabol (Google): Building LLM-Powered Google Search Features
  • High-level look at how Gemini models improve and develop new Google Search experiences
  • Serial entrepreneur (Iskon Internet, Microblink, Photomath); Photomath was acquired by Google
Dr. Marko Velić (Google): How Are AI Models Trained to Think?
  • How reasoning emerges in LLMs, the role of scale, and current limits
  • RL with LLMs: RLHF, GRPO, on-policy distillation, SDPO, with open-source references
  • 20 years building AI at Facebook, Google, LEGO, and Photomath; university and MBA professor

Agenda

  • 17:50: Doors open
  • 18:00: Welcome from SLOAI
  • 18:10: Talk 1: Damir Sabol
  • 18:50: Talk 2: Dr. Marko Velić
  • 19:30: Networking