From Prototype to Production: Real‑World Lessons at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

AI has made it unbelievably easy to spin up a flashy prototype—just a few lines of code and a cloud GPU, and you’ve got something that works in a demo. But taking that shiny demo and turning it into a product customers can depend on day‑in, day‑out? That’s a whole different ball‑game.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, held October 13‑15 at Moscone West, the Real World AI stage will host a panel titled “From Prototype to Production: Can It Scale in Reality?” It’s not a glossy sales pitch; it’s a frank, sometimes messy, look at what happens when a prototype steps out of the lab and into the real world.

Three founders with wildly different back‑stories will share their journeys. First up is John Mackey, co‑founder and CEO of MBRYONICS. His company started as a niche photonics spin‑out, but today it’s building high‑volume manufacturing lines for space‑based optical communications. Mackey will walk us through the sudden shift from tinkering on a bench to running a factory floor that has to churn out components for orbit‑bound networks.

Next, Boris Sofman, the mind behind Bedrock Robotics and a former Waymo veteran, will talk about autonomous trucking. After logging over 100 million driverless miles in controlled test zones, his team had to make those trucks survive rain, construction zones, and the occasional confused deer. Sofman will explain how safety, reliability, and regulatory compliance became as critical as the AI algorithms themselves.

Rounding out the trio is Adrian Macneil, co‑founder of Foxglove and former infrastructure lead at Cruise. He’ll show why scaling isn’t just about building more cars or more satellites, but about building the data pipelines, monitoring tools, and operational playbooks that keep those complex systems humming 24/7. In his view, production is as much about the invisible plumbing as it is about the visible hardware.

The session isn’t promising a one‑size‑fits‑all checklist. Instead, it offers a rare chance to compare three very different scaling playbooks side by side, spotting the common threads—manufacturing hurdles, infrastructure demands, and the relentless need for reliability.

If you’re a founder wrestling with the question “Can we ship this at scale?” or an investor curious about the hidden costs behind a promising demo, you’ll want to be in the room. Disrupt expects over 10,000 founders, investors, and operators, and the Real World AI stage will be packed with people looking for the same gritty answers.

Tickets are still on sale, with savings of up to $200 if you buy before September 25. Grab your pass, swing by the Real World AI stage, and leave with a handful of practical takeaways—plus a few cautionary tales about what can go wrong when you try to mass‑produce the future.