TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Full Breakout Agenda Revealed

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is scheduled for October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, gathering more than 10,000 founders, investors, operators, and tech leaders for three days of programming. According to a report by TechCrunch published on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, organizers have released the full breakout session agenda for the upcoming event. Registration is currently open with discounts of up to $100 off regular pass prices, alongside a 50% discount on a second pass for teams and colleagues. Whether you are managing your capital through a digital wallet or building your enterprise, understanding these trends is critical.

Unlike the main industry stages, the conference breakout rooms feature 50-minute formats that pair expert commentary with live audience questions. Attendance for these sessions operates on a first-come, first-served basis due to limited room capacity. Beyond standard tickets, organizers provide group registration discounts for teams of four or more attendees, alongside $75 Expo+ passes reserved for individuals who have recently experienced a layoff. Furthermore, customer feedback and user engagement metrics remain central to many of the growth sessions scheduled throughout the three-day conference.

Breakout Sessions Focus on AI and Infrastructure

The 2026 breakout schedule addresses the operational challenges currently facing founders and engineers, ranging from agentic workflows to hardware economics. Susan Schofer, partner and chief science officer at SOSV HAX, and Duncan Turner, general partner and managing director at SOSV HAX, are leading a session titled What Is Physical AI, Anyway? to examine machines designed to operate in unpredictable physical environments. In a separate technical session, Anthropic members of technical staff Steve Androulakis and Sachin Malhotra demonstrate how engineers run multiple Claude agents in parallel for software development tasks. Additional discussions on trusted AI explore how expert human judgment can become scalable evaluations as artificial intelligence takes on more consequential work spanning misinformation, online safety, and work with foundation-model labs.

Infrastructure and capital allocation form another core track of the agenda. Hagay Lupesko, SVP of AI cloud at Cerebras Systems, and Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner at Glasswing Ventures, host The Inference Economy: Why AI’s Next Trillion Dollars Won’t Look Like Its First. That panel explores how shifting economics from model training to inference change startup defensibility and latency requirements. Additional sessions tackle specialized applications, including space technology insights from The Aerospace Corporation interim CTO Dr. Brian Cameron, Little Place Labs CEO Bosco Lai, and Aerospace Corporation corporate fellow Shawn Sloan. Experts note that space problems like huge data streams, autonomous decisions, real-time processing, and complex agent systems mirror challenges faced by general AI builders, opening new commercial and government opportunities.

Scaling, Fundraising, and Post-Exit Strategy

Company building, fundraising mechanics, and leadership transitions also feature prominently in the newly revealed lineup. Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, CEO and co-founder of Humane Intelligence, joins ClassPass founder Payal Kadakia, Kozyr founder Cassie Kozyrkov, and Emergent CEO Holly Ransom for a discussion on decision-making and bias in the AI era. Other panels address capital raising mistakes, featuring perspectives from Surgicure Technologies founder and CEO Dr. Irena King, Tampa Bay Wave accelerator managing director Dr. Richard Munassi, General Catalyst partner Ashley Paston, and HealthQuest Capital principal Emily Zhen. These fundraising sessions guide founders through investor targeting, relationship building, outreach, maintaining momentum, cap tables, data rooms, and due diligence to avoid pitfalls that derail rounds.

For founders evaluating long-term trajectories, Keebeck Wealth Management CEO and founder Bruce K Lee and Blank Ventures co-founder and general partner Abhi Tiwari host a session on transitioning from entrepreneurship to capital allocation. Meanwhile, Hostinger managing director Patrick Burke presents strategies for building growth engines using bootstrapped frameworks, identifying underpriced distribution channels, and putting agentic marketing workflows to work. Physical AI execution is further analyzed by Venrock partner Ethan Batraski, Archetype AI founder and CEO Ivan Poupyrev, and Cantos general partner Ian Rountree, who examine how companies can close the loop between perception, decision, action, and verification. Operators looking at internal organization can also attend a talent and scaling session led by Reddit senior technical program manager Nomi Khedawala, focusing on accountability, trust, and team alignment as organizations scale.