AI NewsGet hands-on: The full lineup of interactive roundtables at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Get hands-on: The full lineup of interactive roundtables at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

11:02 PM IST · October 7, 2026

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026is seven days away, bringing 10,000+ founders, investors, operators, and tech leaders to Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13-15 for three days of conversations, connections, and ideas shaping what comes next. Included in your Disrupt pass, which you can currentlysave $100 on, plus 50% off a second, you’ll have the opportunity to take part in a series ofinteractive, deep-dive roundtables, where you’ll join founders, investors, operators, and industry experts tackling the same challenges you are. Bring your questions, share your experience, and get practical perspectives on everything from fundraising and AI to hiring, enterprise software, physical AI, and scaling a company. Don’t miss the chance to spark meaningful connections in roundtables and throughout the event.Register now to save up to $100 on your pass and get a second pass at 50% off. This year’s sessions run across two dedicated roundtable spaces throughout Disrupt. Here’s the full lineup currently on the agenda.Explore the Disrupt agendato learn more about all the sessions. Radha Basu, Founder and CEO,iMerit Physical AI needs more than bigger models. Basu explores the data challenges behind robotics and autonomous systems, including edge cases, multimodal data, and building pipelines that can operate reliably in the real world. Rajeev Singh, CEO,Smartsheet AI isn’t necessarily replacing SaaS — it’s exposing the fragmentation underneath it. Rajeev Singh explores why orchestration, organizational context, and intelligence across workflows could define the next generation of enterprise software. Eléonore Crespo, Co-founder and Co-CEO,Pigment; andSofia Fatakhova, Senior Vice President, Finance and Capital Markets,Chime IPO readiness starts earlier than it used to. Learn how AI-enabled finance teams can automate, document, and build the financial discipline needed well before a company files to go public. Dani London, Investor,Base10 Partners As models improve, specialized data is becoming an increasingly important differentiator. Explore where valuable datasets come from, which applications need them most, and the businesses emerging around this new layer of the AI stack. Join these sessions and more at Disrupt.Register now to save up to $100 on your pass and get a second pass at 50% off. Rob Biederman, Managing Partner,Asymmetric Capital Partners Some of AI’s biggest opportunities may lie outside traditional tech. Biederman explores where outdated workflows and underserved industries are creating room for a new generation of startups. Cal Amir, Keynote Speaker and Founder,Introduction Lab Your first minute with an investor, customer, or potential hire matters. Learn what makes an introduction memorable, which common approaches fall flat, and how to stand out without immediately launching into a pitch. Jackson Feder, VP, Investment,MetaProp AI is moving from digital workflows into construction, property, infrastructure, and energy. Explore where physical AI creates opportunities — and why building for the physical world requires a different approach from traditional software. Logan Farrell, Co-founder and CTO,Rugged Robotics; andAustin Yount, Partner,Brick & Mortar Ventures A great robotics demo isn’t the same as a useful product. This conversation gets into reliability, workflow integration, trust, ROI, and what physical AI needs to deliver before customers adopt it at scale. Srishti Chaudhary, Senior Manager, Product,Walmart eCommerce Commerce is moving from understanding search terms to understanding intent. Explore what agentic shopping means for personalization, transactions, LLMs, and ultimately who owns the relationship with the customer. Speaker details to be announced Quantum computing is getting closer to commercial relevance. This session gives investors a practical grounding in the technology, emerging opportunities, and the milestones that matter when separating genuine progress from hype. Brian Butler, Partner,Questa Capital Healthcare’s adoption of generative AI has moved unusually fast. Butler explores why, what barriers remain, and where founders can build durable value as healthcare organizations rethink the way they buy technology. Alex Li, Partner,MVP Ventures A fundraise is more than a pitch. Learn how to choose the right investors, secure introductions, manage a competitive process, negotiate terms, and build a cap table that helps rather than hinders future growth. Dr. Maha Achour, Co-founder and CEO,Kodamai; andPankaj Kedia, Founder and Managing Partner,2468 Ventures Why do so many enterprise AI projects stay stuck in pilot mode? Explore what needs to change to move agentic systems into trusted, verifiable, scaled production environments. Stephen Ward, Founder and Managing Partner,Brightmind Partners Ward shares lessons from mistakes made during his CISO career, from taking on unsustainable risk to approaching organizational maturity too early — and what other leaders can do differently. Jack Hidary, CEO,SandboxAQ; andStacie Calad-Thomson, Global BD Lead, Life Science Labs and Manufacturing,Nvidia The next wave of AI won’t just generate text. Explore AI grounded in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics — and the opportunities opening across healthcare, materials, energy, finance, and industrial systems. Kevin Hawkins, Head of Partnership Development and Media Distribution,New York Stock Exchange; withDrew Boyles, El Segundo City Councilmember Sponsored by New York Stock Exchange Why has El Segundo become such a magnet for space, defense, and hard tech startups? Hear what’s attracting founders, capital, and talent — and how a city can create an environment where hard tech companies can thrive. Cassie Kozyrkov, Founder,Kozyrand former Chief Decision Scientist, Google Sponsored by Signify Business Cash World Elite Mastercard by Wells Fargo Bring a real business challenge. Kozyrkov leads an interactive discussion about making better founder decisions, where AI can help, and where human judgment remains essential. Vishal KumarandTushar Kumar, Private Wealth Advisors and Co-founders,Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors Sponsored by Twin Peaks Wealth Advisors An IPO, acquisition, or tender offer creates a new set of decisions. Explore tax, concentration risk, lockups, liquidity, and how founders can protect what they have spent years building. Piotr Byrski, CEO and Co-founder,Molecule.one What happens when AI can test thousands of scientific ideas instead of a handful? Byrski explores autonomous experimentation, AI-driven discovery, and how these systems could change the pace of scientific progress. Aditi Maliwal, General Partner,Upfront Ventures Get inside the decision-making process behind an early institutional investment. Learn which founder signals matter before traction exists, how to tell your story, and what can kill an investment before it gets started. Marshall Egger, Founder and COO,Spacemilk Growth can look good while quietly draining cash. Bring your own questions and explore forecasting, inventory, retail terms, cash flow, and how to grow without losing sight of the P&L. Ankita Mehta, Senior Product Manager,Databricks Everyone wants agents, but not every workflow needs one. Learn where companies are seeing measurable value, why pilots stall, and how to evaluate agentic AI before committing infrastructure and teams to it. Mercedes BentandVanessa Larco, Co-founders and Managing Partners,Premise Open-weight models are creating more choice for AI builders. Explore the trade-offs around cost, security, performance, control, and where open models may offer startups a genuine advantage. Harrison Rolfes, Senior Research Analyst, Private Company Coverage,PitchBook With extraordinary amounts of capital flowing into frontier AI, is the market already locked up? Dig into where defensibility really sits and what capital concentration means for founders and investors outside the biggest labs. Itamar Novick, Founder and General Partner,Recursive Ventures; andBrian Sparkes, CEO,Silicon Valley Venture Corp. Sponsored by Silicon Valley Venture Learn when to start raising, how to build an investor narrative, generate momentum, and navigate the journey from an initial VC conversation to a closed institutional round. Kevin Bai, Member of Technical Staff,Anthropic Forward-deployed engineers sit somewhere between software engineering, product, and consulting. Learn when startups need them, where they fit commercially, and why the model can improve enterprise retention and expansion. Neil Sequeira, Founder and Partner,Defy.vc More capital isn’t always better. Sequeira explores overfunding, dilution, investor alignment, and how founders can raise enough to execute without creating expectations or incentives that hurt the business later. James Joaquin, Co-founder and Managing Director,Obvious Ventures Joaquin has built through multiple technology cycles. Hear why he sees AI as fundamentally different, where its real-world impact is already emerging, and how founders can operate when innovation is moving faster than conventional planning cycles. Parul Singh, Investment Partner,645 Ventures Agents are moving from helping people complete work to completing entire workflows themselves. Explore which categories could benefit most and where founders and investors see the biggest opportunities emerging. Naren Krishna, CEO and Co-founder,Balerion; andTravis Skelly, Partner,Pruven Capital Fortune 500 companies want AI without ripping out the systems their businesses depend on. Explore why intelligent agent layers could be a bigger near-term opportunity than replacing enterprise systems of record. Maryanne Alhallak, Co-founder and CEO,Lumeria;Anthea Guo, Co-founder and CTO,Lumeria; andKeith McAleer, Chief Marketing Officer,UC Berkeley SCET Sponsored by UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) Explore UC Berkeley’s approach to entrepreneurship, hear directly from founders emerging from its ecosystem, and learn how investors, companies, and entrepreneurs can get involved. Join these sessions and more at Disrupt.Register now to save up to $100 on your pass and get a second pass at 50% off. Roundtables are where theDisrupt agendabecomes a conversation. Instead of just hearing how someone else approached a problem, you can ask the questions that matter to your company, compare experiences with the people around the table, and leave with ideas you can put to work. TechCrunch Disrupt 2026takes place October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. It’s the startup epicenter where 10,000+ tech leaders come together for insights designed to push the needle and spark meaningful connections. Register before doors open to save up to $100 on your pass and get 50% off a second ticketfor a co-founder, partner, colleague, or peer.