At our past TechCrunch Disrupt events, AI has taken center stage, both throughout our programming and in a stage of its own. This year, the technology, implications, and players are so rapidly developing and widespread that we’re expanding the single AI stage into two!
The AI Stage will continue as you’d expect, with a rundown of sessions and speakers available for review right here. But the Real World AI Stage is brand-new for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
On this stage, we’ll be focusing on that intersection between the digital and physical, and all the ways we’ll continue to see a blending of the two, as autonomous hardware goes beyond self-driving cars and enters public spaces, battlefields, our homes, and even potentially helps extinct species reenter Earth.
It’s a packed lineup featuring speakers from Shield AI, Colossal Biosciences, FieldAI, Foxglove, and more still to come. You can join in on all the excitement October 13 to 15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, so register to attend right here.
But in the meantime, here’s the breakdown of our Real World AI Stage lineup:
Robots Are Waiting for Their ChatGPT Moment. Here Is What Is Standing in the Way
Large language models had the internet. Self-driving cars have millions of hours of road data. Robots have neither. That data gap is the single biggest reason most experts believe general-purpose robotic intelligence is still years away, despite the breakthroughs happening everywhere else in AI. A new wave of startups is racing to close it, building the data pipelines, simulation environments, and foundation models that could trigger the same capability explosion we saw with LLMs. This session asks the hard question: what does the ChatGPT moment for physical AI actually require, and how close are we really?
With Les Karpas, Head of Physical AI, Nvidia
Building AI Systems When Failure Is Not an Option
When AI enters the physical world, the consequences of failure change. A mistake could lead to a grounded aircraft, a vehicle crash, or a compromised mission.
In this session, leaders who are building autonomous vehicles, defense technologies, and industrial systems will talk about one of the toughest questions that every hard tech founder must face: How do you know when your system is ready to be safely deployed?
We’ll dig into how founders can create a safety culture, test and validate AI, navigate regulatory hurdles, and build companies that can earn trust when the stakes are high.
With Nate Michael, CTO, Shield AI
Can We Engineer Nature’s Comeback?
Ben Lamm has built one of the most controversial companies in tech by turning de-extinction from science fiction into a billion-dollar business. In this fireside chat, the Colossal Biosciences CEO will discuss the technologies used to revive extinct species, the role AI plays in modern biology, and the growing debate over whether engineering nature is a conservation breakthrough or a distraction from protecting what’s already here.
With Ben Lamm, CEO, Colossal Biosciences
Operating at the Edge: How AI Works When the Cloud Doesn’t
The most valuable AI deployments in the world operate where the cloud can’t reach. And building for them requires a different technological playbook.
This session brings together leaders from defense, space, and industrial AI who will share how they have tackled the challenge of making AI work at the edge — where latency matters, connectivity is limited, and failure isn’t an option. Expect practical lessons on architectural principles, design decisions, and trade-offs that make AI-centric systems work in the real world.
With Dr. Ali Agha, CEO and founder of FieldAI; Michelle Lee, CEO and founder, Medra; and Aidan Madigan-Curtis, partner, Eclipse Ventures
From Prototype to Production: Can it scale in reality?
A prototype that works is not a product. A product that ships is not a scaled business. The gap between each of those stages is where most deep tech startups die. Founders might have the right team and tech, but they fail to understand what it takes to bring a prototype into production and eventually scale to higher, profitable volumes.
This session brings together founders who have crossed that gap in space hardware, humanoid robotics, and autonomous systems. They’ll share what they got wrong, what they’d do earlier, and what the prototype-to-production journey looks like when supply chains and manufacturing realities replace lab conditions.
With John Mackey, CEO, co-founder, MBRYONICS; Boris Sofman, co-founder and CEO, Bedrock Robotics; and Adrian Macneil, CEO, Foxglove
There’s plenty more in store for you at Disrupt 2026 — after all, that’s just one stage’s worth of programming! For a sense of what else you’ll get to access, we’ve also announced the:
- Disrupt Stage, featuring top speakers from Replit, Amazon, Tether, and more.
- AI Stage, digging into the security gaps and business model shifts AI is forcing on every SaaS company.
- Smart Money Stage, covering stablecoins, instant payments, and AI’s role in financial trust.
- Smart Systems Stage, tackling the fusion breakthroughs and grid strain powering AI’s next decade.
- Builders Stage, where founders and investors get tactical about raising, hiring, and scaling.
Be part of Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco from October 13–15, where more than 10,000 startup, tech, and VC leaders come together for three days of insights, Startup Battlefield, unparalleled networking, and access to every stage and the exhibition floor.
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