Beyond Biohacking Conference, Austin | May 27–29, 2025
It’s a line ingrained in popular culture by The Matrix: Blue pill or red pill? Which do you choose?
In some ways, walking into the Beyond Biohacking conference felt like entering the Matrix of annual conventions. If the blue pill is our everyday world as we know it, the red pill in Austin was the frontier of biohacking, longevity, human potential, and consciousness, all under one very large roof.
The frontiers of what it means to be human are expanding. And the Beyond Biohacking conference is one of the places where that’s happening.
From Empty Bar to 5,000-Person Conference
May 27–29: around 5,000 people gathered in Austin to see, be seen, and explore who and what are pushing the edge of human potential this year. Tickets were hard to come by.It wasn’t always this way. As founder Dave Asprey reflected on social media after the event: “The whole Biohacking movement started with 100 people in a bar, and last week I shared it with 5,000 people in a room.” Apparently, the bar was cheap space.
These days, headliners included Arthur Brooks, Ben Azadi, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Jay Shetty, and a virtual keynote by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, alongside upwards of 100 presenters total. Vendors filled two floors with gadgets and interactive experiences promising everything from shifted brain waves to restored skin to AI-powered life planning.
There was literally more to do than time in the day.
In fact, with so many sessions, this matrix also had a “choose your own adventure” element to it.
Between sessions, we used sound frequencies and light to settle into altered states; explored hyperbaric oxygen chambers; tried tinctures; and discovered what may just be the new “massage gun.”
Was all of it life-changing? No.
But was some of it thought-provoking and world-shifting? Absolutely.
Biohacking… and Beyond?
The movement’s growth in scope is perhaps best captured in the name change itself.
In 2025, Asprey formally rebranded the event as Beyond Biohacking. The reasoning was pointed: “Health optimization is dead. In the world of biohacking, we’re expanding the amount of energy we have instead of optimizing.”
It’s a subtle but important distinction. Optimization suggests fine-tuning a fixed system. Expansion implies something else entirely, the idea that the ceiling itself might be higher than we think. With that shift has come more: more modalities, more presenters, more science, more spectacle, and a broader exploration into what “human potential” actually means.
Going Beyond the Biological
Which brings us to the frontier that drew perhaps the most charged reactions of the weekend: consciousness.
Huge booths and prime speaking spots were both held for forays into the unknown dimensions of the human mind, and one keynote in particular stopped the room. Presented by The Institute of Absolute Intelligence, the session demonstrated what were described as hidden abilities that deep meditation practice can unlock. It featured two teenagers, both blindfolded, performing tasks that science is still working to explain.
One of the teenagers, Nysa, used her intuition to solve a Rubik’s Cube handed to her by a stranger in 90 seconds, all without lifting her blindfold. She also (still blind-folded) dictated flawlessly the serial number of a random hundred-dollar bill presented by an audience member.
Reactions in the room ranged widely. A hush fell across the audience, which then broke into shouts of “Incredible,” alongside healthy curiosity on the other end.
The accompanying keynote by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar gave ample food for thought and a frame worth sitting with: “While we have made great advances, what we can achieve as human beings, the potential of consciousness, and its impact on the world is yet to be discovered. There is much more to meditation than just relaxation. It is also about exploring the hidden abilities that consciousness has beyond the senses.”
The Thread That Keeps People Coming Back
And that, perhaps, is what makes this conference genuinely singular: it gives people food for thought that they’re still chewing on when they get home.
I spoke with several attendees to see what fans the flame of their enthusiasm for this movement. Often, the answer wasn’t a specific thing or person. It was about learning and expanding perspectives.
One friend was wholly absorbed by the hyperbaric oxygen chambers. A colleague couldn’t get enough of the new herbal formulas for liver rejuvenation. Repeat attendee Jennifer Youngberg put it simply: “This was a life-changing event for me, as it always is.” She even credits both the biohacking movement with saving her life.
What struck attendee Lauren Fields wasn’t any single technology, but a pattern across voices: “What struck me most was how many speakers came back to the same themes: purpose, presence, relationships, meaning, service… The future of health may be technology, but the foundation of a well-lived life is still deeply human.” Podcaster Dylan Gemelli was blunter still, calling it “not just an ‘experience,’ but a game changer.”
Red Pill, Taken
The Beyond Biohacking conference may defy definition, and it may also be many things at once: part trade show, part TED-style lecture series, part experiment in what’s possible, and even more importantly, what could be possible.
The red pill, as it turns out, doesn’t always give you answers. But it does sometimes offer up a broader perspective and new, exciting questions. And in Austin this May, there were 5,000 people willing to keep asking them.
The Beyond Biohacking Conference was held May 27–29, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
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