Shield AI, Waabi, and General Motors on building AI when failure is not an option at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
- ID
- 28135
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 24 Sep 2026, 11:00 PM
- Fetched
- 25 Sep 2026, 12:40 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/24/shield-ai-waabi-and-general-motors-on-building-ai-when-failure-is-not-an-option-at-techcrunch-disrupt-2026/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 2.0
- Created
- 25 Sep 2026, 12:41 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- ai_ml_learnersfounders
What happened
TechCrunch published a promotional post for a Disrupt 2026 panel titled "Building AI Systems When Failure Is Not an Option," featuring Shield AI CTO Nathan Michael, Waabi founder/CEO Raquel Urtasun, and GM Director of Robotics Strategy Mikell Taylor, covering safety culture, testing and validation, and regulation for AI in aircraft, vehicles, and robots. The only concrete news in the text is background: Shield AI's Hivemind was picked in February as an autonomy provider for the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone prototype program, and in March Shield AI announced a $1.5B Series G at a $12.7B post-money valuation. The rest is ticket marketing, with discounts of up to $200 (plus 50% off a second pass) ending September 25, 11:59 p.m. PT.
Why it matters
Nothing here changes what you build or buy. If you were considering a Disrupt pass, the deadline is September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT before prices rise; otherwise the only reusable datapoint is that defense-autonomy software (Hivemind) is being procured for the USAF's Collaborative Combat Aircraft prototype program and that Shield AI raised $1.5B at a $12.7B valuation — a signal of where autonomy capital is concentrated, not a tool you can adopt.
Discussion angle
If you ship anything that acts in the physical world, what does your validation story look like before deploy — and is 'safety culture' a process you can actually staff, or just a panel topic?