Past TechCrunch Disrupt events have had AI take center stage, both throughout programming and on its own stage. This year, we’re expanding one AI stage into two as technology, influences, and players evolve and proliferate rapidly.
The AI Stage will continue as expected, and you can find an overview of sessions and speakers here. However, the Real World AI Stage is a completely new stage for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
This stage will focus on the intersection of the digital and physical, and all the ways we will continue to see the digital and physical converge, as autonomous hardware moves beyond self-driving cars and into public spaces, battlefields, and homes, potentially helping extinct species re-invade the planet.
A solid lineup featuring speakers from Shield AI, Colossal Biosciences, FieldAI, Foxglove, and more. You can join in the excitement at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13th to 15th. Please register here.
In the meantime, here’s a breakdown of the Real World AI Stage lineup:
The robot is waiting for the ChatGPT moment. Here’s what gets in the way
Large-scale language models had the Internet. Self-driving cars store millions of hours of road data. Robots have neither. This data gap is the biggest reason why most experts believe that despite breakthroughs happening everywhere else in AI, general robot intelligence is still years away. A new wave of startups is racing to solve this problem, building data pipelines, simulation environments, and underlying models that can spark the same feature explosion seen in LLM. This session will ask the tough questions: What does a ChatGPT moment for physics AI actually entail, and how close are we really getting?
With Les Karpas, Head of Physics AI at Nvidia
Building AI systems when failure is not an option
When AI enters the physical world, the consequences of failure will change. One wrong move can result in an aircraft landing, vehicle collision, or mission jeopardy.
In this session, leaders developing self-driving cars, defense technology, and industrial systems discuss one of the toughest questions every hard tech founder must face. How do you know when your system is ready to be safely deployed?
A deep dive into how founders can build a safety culture, test and validate AI, overcome regulatory hurdles, and build companies that can earn trust when the stakes are high.
With Nate Michael, CTO, Shield AI
Can we engineer the restoration of nature?
Ben Rahm built one of the most controversial companies in the technology industry by turning a science fiction eradication operation into a billion-dollar business. In this fireside chat, the CEO of Colossal Biosciences talks about the technologies used to bring back extinct species, the role of AI in modern biology, and the growing debate over whether natural engineering is a breakthrough in conservation or a distraction from protecting what already exists.
With Ben Lam, CEO of Colossal Biosciences
Operating at the edge: How AI works when the cloud doesn’t work
The world’s most valuable AI deployments occur in places the cloud can’t reach. And building for them requires a different technical strategy.
This session will bring together defense, space, and industrial AI leaders to share how they are tackling the challenges of running AI at the edge, where latency is an issue, connectivity is limited, and failures are not an option. Expect practical lessons on architectural principles, design decisions, and tradeoffs for making AI-centric systems work in the real world.
With Dr. Ali Agha, CEO and Founder of FieldAI. Michelle Lee, CEO and Founder of Medora. and Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner at Eclipse Ventures.
From prototype to production: Can it actually scale?
A working prototype is not a product. Shipping products is not a big business. The gap between each of these stages is where most deep tech startups die. Founders may have the right team and technology, but they don’t understand what it takes to take a prototype into production and eventually scale up to higher, more profitable volumes.
This session brings together founders who have bridged the gap in space hardware, humanoid robotics, and autonomous systems. They share what went wrong, what they should have done sooner, and what the path from prototype to commercialization looks like when the realities of supply chain and manufacturing supersede lab conditions.
With John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of MBRYONICS. Boris Sofman, co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics. Adrian McNeil, CEO of Foxglove
Disrupt 2026 has even more in store. After all, this is just one stage of programming. As for what else you’ll have access to, we also announced:
The Disrupt Stage will feature top speakers from Replit, Amazon, Tether and more. The AI stage delves into the security gaps and business model changes that AI is forcing on every SaaS company. The Smart Money Stage will cover the role of AI in stablecoins, instant payments, and financial trusts. The Smart Systems stage will address the fusion breakthroughs and grid strain that will underpin the next decade of AI. During the Builders Stage, founders and investors consider tactics for raising money, hiring, and scaling.
Join us at Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco from October 13th to 15th. The event brings together over 10,000 startup, technology, and venture capital leaders for three days of insights, a startup battlefield, unparalleled networking, and access to every stage and exhibit floor.
Register now!
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