Leaders from Shield AI, Waabi and General Motors will take part in a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 on building AI systems for the physical world, where a mistake can ground an aircraft, cause a vehicle crash or compromise a mission.
The session, titled "Building AI Systems When Failure Is Not an Option," will feature Shield AI Chief Technology Officer Nathan Michael, Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun, and General Motors Director of Robotics Strategy Mikell Taylor on the Real World AI Stage. According to the event listing, the conversation will cover creating a safety culture, testing and validating systems, navigating regulatory hurdles and earning trust.
Shield AI's Hivemind platform-agnostic mission autonomy software was selected in February as an autonomy provider for the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone prototype program, and in March the company announced $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation.
Waabi raised $1 billion in January and announced a partnership with Uber to support the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis. Its Waabi World simulator trains, tests and stress-tests the Waabi Driver in a virtual environment, and Urtasun has said the company's autonomous trucks still need to be fully validated before driverless deployment.
Taylor leads robotics strategy for General Motors' Autonomous Robotics Center and previously led the Amazon Robotics team that developed Proteus, Amazon's first autonomous mobile robot.
Disrupt 2026 runs October 13–15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, with more than 10,000 founders, investors, operators and tech leaders expected, along with 250 or more speakers and 300 or more exhibiting startups. Discounted passes are available until September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, with prices increasing afterwards.