Learn about AI in HR at Disrupt 2026

A startup’s first few hires can define the company. However, not every new function requires new employees anymore.

AI agents are beginning to take on engineering, customer support, research, and operational duties that were previously assigned to early team members. For founders, that creates new questions about what people should own and what they should delegate to AI before they start recruiting.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Josh Reeves, CEO and co-founder of Gusto, said: Michelle Johnson, Senior Vice President, Insight Partners; John Keriker, CEO and co-founder of Leland, will be joining us on the Builders Stage for an insightful session called “Recruiting When AI Becomes a Co-Founder.”

This session explores how early-stage companies are building teams of humans and AI agents working together, and how founders can do it without sacrificing speed, responsibility, or culture.

Join over 10,000 startups, investors, and technology decision makers at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13th to 15th to explore what it takes to build and scale the next generation of companies. Register now and save up to $200 on your Disrupt Pass before the price increases on September 25th at 11:59pm PT. Save up to 30% when you register as a group.

The first 10 people at a startup may no longer be all human.

For early-stage companies, hiring is all about trade-offs between ability, cost, and speed. AI agents add another option.

Engineering tasks, customer support, and operational work are increasingly being delegated to systems that can complete multi-step tasks rather than simply helping employees complete them. This gives founders an opportunity to rethink what their early team should actually look like.

Instead of automatically asking, “Who should I hire next?” you can start asking, “What job do I need to do, and who is the best person to do it?” That distinction is important.

Delegating work to AI agents allows smaller teams to move faster, but it also raises new questions about ownership. Who will check the work? Who makes the final decisions? What happens if an agent makes a mistake? And which responsibilities are too important to delegate? For companies building AI-native startups, these are no longer theoretical questions.

All these questions and more can be answered in Disrupt’s builder stage. Save up to $200 when you get your pass by September 25th at 11:59pm PT. Join our community and save up to 30%.

3 perspectives on AI native teams shared at Disrupt

Josh Reeves sees changes happening, especially across a broader customer base. Combining AI and more than a decade of experience serving small and medium-sized businesses, Gusto helps more than 500,000 companies with everything from payroll, benefits, compliance, onboarding, HR, and retirement. This brings Gusto closer to the everyday reality of companies deciding when and how to grow their teams.

Michelle Johnson brings her perspective on scaling startups. At Insight Partners, we work with CEOs and CROs in North America and Europe on their go-to-market strategies, revenue organizations, and AI implementation. Prior to joining Insight, she was an early sales and revenue operations leader, helping grow Flock Safety’s ARR from less than $1 million to $90 million.

Her perspective raises another set of questions. If an AI agent can research leads, prepare outreach, analyze customer data, or manage parts of the sales process, what should human members of the revenue team focus on? And how does that change the skills that startups should prioritize when hiring?

John Koelliker sits directly at the intersection of talent and AI. As CEO and co-founder of Leland, the AI-era career and talent platform, he brings experience across product and growth roles at LinkedIn, Curated, and Uber, while building a company focused on how people develop and apply skills in a changing labor market.

Taken together, these provide three different perspectives on the same issue. How do you design your startup team when some of the work can be done by agents from day one? Register by September 25th at 11:59pm PT to save up to $200 on passes and hear this session live on the Builders Stage. Bring your team or community and save up to 30% on passes.

What should people own about AI?

Some of the most important decisions within a startup company are difficult to translate into workflow.

Who understands what customers really need? Who will challenge bad strategies? Who will take responsibility when something goes wrong? Who builds relationships, drives teams, and makes decisions when data points in the wrong direction? As AI agents become more capable, these questions are likely to become more important, not less.

The role of early employees is likely to be increasingly defined by judgment, ownership, and the ability to direct both people and machines, rather than simply completing a large number of tasks. This has implications for the entire startup ecosystem.

Learn how to build a company, not just a technology, with Disrupt’s Builders stage

Early-stage companies have always competed on their ability to do more with less. AI agents could take this principle even further.

But a company is more than the sum of the tasks it completes. Founders still need people who can make decisions, take responsibility, understand their customers, and create a culture in which their business grows.

The challenge is to determine where these people create the most value and where agents can do that work for them. That’s the conversation Josh Reeves, Michelle Johnson, and John Koelliker have on Disrupt.

Join Builders Stage to explore what happens when AI not only helps your startup, but becomes part of your team. Then continue our conversations with more than 10,000 founders, investors, and executives across Moscone West, Expo Hall, the Startup Battlefield 200, and countless networking opportunities.

Startup organizational charts are changing. Learn how to forge your path to what’s next, only at Disrupt 2026. Secure your pass now and save up to $200 by September 25th at 11:59pm PT. Save up to 30% when you register as a group.