Anthropic and OpenAI are joining the AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
The event runs from October 13 to 15 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. Google for Startups presents the stage. The focus shifts from general hype to specific business challenges: pricing models as AI becomes commoditised, security gaps in agent infrastructure, and new job categories created by the technology.
Tickets cost up to $200 less if bought before the current window closes.
What Anthropic Sees When Enterprises Actually Deploy Claude
Most discussions about enterprise AI happen before a product is live. This session starts after deployment. Cat de Jong, Head of Applied AI at Anthropic, works with companies running Claude in critical workflows. She reports on patterns that do not appear in press releases.
The talk covers where deployments succeed immediately and where they stall. It also examines what separates organisations extracting real value from those still running pilots eighteen months in. Cat de Jong shares what applied AI looks like inside the world’s most closely watched AI company.
With Cat de Jong, Head of Applied AI, Anthropic
What Building AI Native Actually Means. Join the Conversation with OpenAI’s Head of Productivity
Two years ago, GTM engineering did not exist. Today, it is one of the fastest growing roles in the industry. Independent practitioners are building million-dollar businesses in this space.
The session traces how AI collapsed the traditional go-to-market stack and created an entirely new discipline in its place. Attendees learn what AI-native GTM looks like in practice and how it is changing the way companies grow.
With Tara Seshan, Head of Productivity, OpenAI
The Enterprise Isn’t Broken. Your Assumptions About It Are.
AI is now making autonomous decisions inside the most sensitive enterprise systems in the world. This happens at a speed traditional security frameworks were not built for.
The session breaks down what enterprise AI security actually requires in 2026. Topics include observability, governance, and the architecture that separates deployments enterprises can trust from ones they cannot afford to touch.
With Arsalan Tavakoli, Co-founder and SVP of Field Engineering, Databricks
The Agent Security Problem Nobody Is Talking About
Agentic AI is powerful, but it was never built to be secure. Enterprises trying to use that power are learning to rebuild the basic elements of cybersecurity from scratch.
This is a candid technical conversation about what agent security actually requires at the infrastructure level. It covers why application-level permission models are fundamentally flawed and the architectural decisions that really matter when deploying agentic AI.
With Ric Smith, President of Product & Technology at Okta
The Video Intelligence Race: Real-Time, Reasoning, and What Comes Next
Visual AI has moved past attention-getting demos into real-time inference and physical reasoning. Founders building at the frontier discuss what happens when generation crosses into genuine intelligence.
With Dean Leitersdorf, Co-founder and CEO, Decart, and Amit Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Luma AI
Rewriting SaaS: Why AI Breaks the Old Business Model
Is the SaaS playook dead, or is it just evolving? This session brings together founders and platform leaders who are grappling with that question in real time.
Attendees leave with a sharper understanding of how to price AI products sustainably. They also learn how to build defensible moats when models are commoditising and how to make SaaS work in the AI era.
With Arvind Jain, Founder & CEO, Glean, Barr Moses, Co-founder & CEO, Monte Carlo, Cathy Gao, Partner at Sapphire Ventures, and Aaron Jacobson, Partner, NEA
The GTM Engineer: How AI Created Tech’s Next Big Job Category
GTM engineering did not exist two years ago. Now it is one of the fastest-growing roles in tech. Independent practitioners are building million-dollar businesses.
Attendees learn what AI-native GTM looks like in practice and how it is reshaping growth.
With Kareem Amin, Co-founder and CEO, Clay
Securing the AI Enterprise: Why the Cloud Just Got a Lot More Complicated
AI is running inside the most sensitive enterprise systems in the world. It makes autonomous decisions at a speed and scale that traditional security frameworks were never designed to handle.
The session delivers the infrastructure-level view of what enterprise AI security actually requires in 2026. Topics include observability, governance, and the architectural principles that separate deployments enterprises can trust from ones they cannot afford to touch.
With Chet Kapoor, VP, Security Services & Observability, AWS, Katie Moussouris, Luta Security, Wendy Nather, 1Password
Whether you are rethinking your pricing model, closing the security gaps in your AI stack, or building the go-to-market playbook that does not exist yet, the AI Stage is where the builders shaping this next wave get specific.
The event includes 10,000+ startup, tech, and VC leaders. Access covers every other stage, the Startup Battlefield, networking opportunities, and the exhibition floor.
