US CEO’s big AI summit night ends with room service after 4-hour traffic gridlock
It was meant to be an evening of policy, possibility and powerful conversations. Instead, it ended with a late-night room service tray.
Sara Hooker, the US-based CEO of Adaption Labs, had flown in to attend the high-profile AI Impact Summit dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The gathering promised a curated guest list of global artificial intelligence leaders, policymakers and innovators — the kind of room where future collaborations are sketched between courses.
Caught in a massive traffic snarl in the national capital, the tech executive spent nearly four hours inching through clogged roads as security arrangements and heavy vehicular movement brought key stretches of the city to a near standstill. By the time it became clear she would not reach the venue in time, the summit dinner was already under way.
At around 11 pm, instead of exchanging ideas on frontier AI systems, Hooker was scanning a hotel menu.
The contrast was hard to miss, a global leader in cutting-edge artificial intelligence — a field built on efficiency, optimisation and speed — stalled by an old-world urban bottleneck. The irony quickly became a talking point in tech and policy circles.
The AI Impact Summit was designed to spotlight India’s growing influence in the global AI ecosystem.
With government officials, startup founders and multinational executives in attendance, the dinner hosted by the Prime Minister was positioned as a key networking moment. For many invitees, it was a rare chance to engage directly with India’s top leadership on artificial intelligence strategy and cross-border collaboration.
Hooker, whose work focuses on advanced AI systems and responsible deployment, was expected to be among those voices contributing to the dialogue. Instead, her evening became an unintended reminder that even in an era of machine learning and predictive algorithms, some variables — like metropolitan traffic — remain stubbornly analogue.
There was no public complaint, no dramatic statement. Just a missed dinner and a quiet meal delivered to a hotel room after hours of gridlock.
Yet the episode has resonated beyond a single evening’s inconvenience. As India positions itself as a global AI powerhouse, the incident has sparked fresh chatter about infrastructure readiness, event logistics and the lived experience of visiting business leaders navigating the capital.
For Hooker, the summit may continue in meeting rooms and panel discussions. But her most memorable story from the trip might well be the night artificial intelligence met immovable traffic — and traffic won.
