One Brain, Any Body
The opening shot: a single foundation model that can drive any robot body. Why "omni-bodied" intelligence, not one robot at a time, is the unlock, and what it means for everyone building in physical AI.
Thursday, July 16, 2026 · The Midway, San Francisco
The 2026 agenda
Two stages, one day. Foundation models for robots, fleet economics, driverless freight, and the people actually shipping it.
Frontier Stage Where the field is going
Builder Stage How it gets built
8:00 - 9:00 AM
Registration & Breakfast
Doors open. Grab coffee and breakfast, pick up your badge, and start the morning among the founders, engineers, and investors building the future of physical AI.
9:00 - 9:10 AM
Opening Remarks
A quick welcome and the lay of the land before a full day of robotics and physical AI.
9:10 - 9:30 AM
9:30 - 9:55 AM
Robots That Learn by Watching the World
A fresh, billion-dollar counter-thesis: robots that learn to act by predicting what happens next, frame by frame, instead of being told in language. Teaching machines to anticipate the physical world.
Driverless Freight, Built Inside a Global Truckmaker
Moderated by 
Abhirup RoyReuters
Abhirup RoyReuters The contrarian path to self-driving trucks: build the autonomy inside the truck maker, not as an outsider. The capital-disciplined road to driver-out freight.
9:55 - 10:15 AM
World Models: The Bridge From Self-Driving to Every Robot
From perceiving humans in 3D to self-driving to general robotics, why "world models" that imagine the physical world may be the connective tissue of all embodied AI.
Rebuilding the Factory: Physical AI on the Production Line
Lukas PankauCo-CEO, Industrial Next 
Adarsh KulkarniCEO, Foundry Robotics 
Chris ChenCo-CEO of FF AI-Robotics, Faraday Future Moderated by 
Junfan ZhuSaturday Robotics
Junfan ZhuSaturday Robotics Can AI actually rebuild American manufacturing, or is it still a demo? Three builders on what's shipping on the production line today, and what reshoring really takes.
10:15 - 10:45 AM
Networking Break
Refuel and connect. Coffee, conversation, and a chance to find the people you came to meet.
10:45 - 11:10 AM
Self-Driving Excavators: Autonomy Comes to the Jobsite
Moderated by 
Rya JethaBusiness Insider
Rya JethaBusiness Insider The team teaching heavy machines to drive themselves. Why the construction site may be the next great frontier for real-world autonomy.
What It Takes to Run a Robot Fleet
A rare founder who has put physical robots into messy real-world venues at fleet scale, and the hard-won economics of robots-as-a-service: what actually pencils, and what breaks.
11:05 - 11:35 AM
Where Robots Learn Before the Real World
Robots have to practice in simulated worlds before the real one, but building those worlds takes weeks. A look at generating endless, varied training environments from a simple prompt.
The Models Behind Physical AI
Peter WilczynskiChief Product Officer, Vantor 
Sammy SidhuCEO, Eventual 
Ivan PoupyrevFounder & CEO, Archetype AI 
Eesha PathakSenior Director of Product, Crusoe Moderated by 
Tejes SrivalsanCEO, Abundance
Tejes SrivalsanCEO, Abundance Everyone is racing to build robot brains, but the real bottleneck is the data, models, and compute that train them. Sharply different views on where it comes from, who owns the moat, and whether power and GPUs are the real cap on how big these models get.
11:35 AM - 12:00 PM
Orchestrating a Thousand Robots
Moderated by 
Harry McCrackenFast Company
Harry McCrackenFast Company A robotics pioneer who imagined "cloud robotics" 15 years ago now runs physical AI at warehouse scale, where embodied AI grows up, coordinating thousands of robots on the floor.
Beyond the Road: Drones, Sidewalks & the Last Mile
Juraj KabzanVP Autonomy, Skydio 
Rajesh RadhakrishnanVP Autonomy, Serve Robotics 
Harry MellsopCo-Founder, Antioch Harry Mellsop also steers the conversation.
Autonomy is not just cars. The robots quietly solving the last mile, flying and rolling, and the hardest validation problems in the field.
12:00 - 1:00 PM
Lunch
A lunch built for connection. Eat, network, and trade notes with the room.
1:00 - 1:35 PM
Startup Showcase
The post-lunch jolt: live robots and hands on stage, and fast pitches from the startups building the next physical-AI products.
Physical AI in the Supply Chain
Navigation feels solved; grabbing a random box from a messy trailer still is not. The multi-billion-dollar frontier of manipulation and fulfillment, from the companies cracking it.
1:35 - 2:05 PM
Deploying Robots at Real-World Scale
Paul MikesellCEO, Carbon Robotics 
Noah Ready-CampbellCEO, Built Robotics 
Samuel ReevesCEO, FORT Robotics 
Tessa LauCEO, Dusty Robotics Moderated by 
Michelle SunFounder, Core Matter Labs
Michelle SunFounder, Core Matter Labs Past the highlight reel: laser-weeding farms, solar-building robots, layout robots on live construction slabs, and the safety layer that lets any fleet run. What "at scale" actually means.
Building a Robotics Team That Ships
Jari SafiVP of AI & Computer Vision, Simbe Robotics 
Reed GinsbergCTO, Shinkei Systems 
Mai BuiCo-Founder & CEO, Quarter20 Moderated by 
Rishabh AggarwalCTO, Raise Robotics
Rishabh AggarwalCTO, Raise Robotics The least-glamorous, most-decisive topic for founders: how you actually build and scale a team that ships hardware, across retail, seafood, and the factory floor.
2:05 - 2:35 PM
Where the Money Goes: Betting on Physical AI
Bilal ZuberiFounder & Managing Partner, Red Glass Ventures 
James HardimanGeneral Partner, DCVC 
Kanu GulatiPartner, Khosla Ventures Moderated by 
Steve JacobsFounding Partner, Drumbeat Capital
Steve JacobsFounding Partner, Drumbeat Capital The investors writing the checks on the room's central question: is physical AI the next great venture frontier, or the next bubble?
The Robot Harvest: Autonomy Comes to the Farm
Vibhor SoodCo-Founder & VP Engineering, Burro 
John MacdonaldHead of AI, Bonsai Robotics 
Leonardo CarvalhoChief Global Strategy Officer, Solinftec 
A labor crisis, GPS-denied dust, and thin margins: why the farm is one of the toughest and most real proving grounds for autonomy.
2:35 - 3:15 PM
Roundtables
The part everyone talks about afterward. Pull up to a table on the topic you care about most, such as fundraising, hiring, deployment, or the humanoid debate, and dig in with peers. No panel, just the conversations you came for.
3:15 - 3:40 PM
Factories at the Speed of Software
Moderated by Rya JethaBusiness Insider
Rya JethaBusiness Insider The "robotic blacksmith": AI-driven robots that form metal with no dies and no fixed tooling, turning the factory itself into something you can reprogram.
Building the Fully-Autonomous Tractor
A rare both-sides view: how a software startup and a 135-year-old equipment maker actually co-build autonomy, the partnership most founders dream about and most OEMs fear.
3:40 - 4:10 PM
The Humanoid Moment: Real or Overhyped?
Moderated by 
Rocket DrewThe Information
Rocket DrewThe Information The year's most-hyped topic, with a contrarian builder making a high-stakes second act. An honest look at where humanoids are real, and where they are narrative.
The Race to Driverless Freight
Xiaodi HouCEO, Bot Auto 
Shubham ShrivastavaHead of AI, Kodiak AI 
Andrew CulhaneChief Commercial Officer, Torc Robotics 
Christian StanoField CTO, Anyscale Moderated by 
Kishor VeerashekarPlug and Play Ventures
Kishor VeerashekarPlug and Play Ventures Three trucking competitors and the compute and safety layers beneath them, debated by an AV-safety expert: the cost, the timeline, and the safety case for pulling the driver.
4:10 - 4:30 PM
Autonomy in the Wild
Robots dropped onto a site they have never seen, no map, no GPS, that just work. The foundation models putting machines to work in the places the rest of autonomy avoids: construction, energy, mining, and the open field.
4:30 - 4:50 PM
Deploying General-Purpose Robots
Russ Tedrake has been on the front lines building Physical AI for years as a Professor at MIT and an SVP at the Toyota Research Institute. We're at the dawn of the age of general-purpose robots, with the field now focused on moving out of the lab and into real production manufacturing environments. Russ will share his inside perspective on how this new phase of robotics is unfolding, what is real versus what is still hard, and how to mesh the tech with how manufacturing works today.
4:50 - 5:00 PM
Closing Remarks
A few final words to send the day off before the reception.
5:00 - 6:00 PM
Happy Hour Reception
Drinks, robots, and the best conversations of the day. Wind down with the founders, operators, and investors who showed up to build the future.
2027 is being built now.
The 2026 room was 600+ founders, engineers and investors in physical AI. Get first word on dates, tickets and the 2027 lineup.