Les Karpas of Nvidia will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where his presentation is titled “Robots Are Waiting for Their ChatGPT Moment.” His talk explores why robotics has yet to experience its own breakout moment, and considers what might finally bring it about.
Karpas is Nvidia Inception’s Global Head of Physical AI. His job is to coordinate the company’s relationship with the startup ecosystem stretching across robotics, automotive, manufacturing, mobility, and smart cities. He’ll be diving into why robotics hasn’t had its own breakout moment — and what could change that.
The Karpas Pitch
Karpas comes from a lengthy career in design and engineering. He has worked as an architect, manufacturing engineer, startup CEO, venture studio executive, and corporate venture capitalist, having spent time at Stanley Black & Decker, Intellectual Ventures, Herman Miller, iRobot, and Cirque du Soleil.
He sits at the heart of Nvidia’s robotics work, which means he deals with the companies attempting to close the data gap on a daily basis. Those firms are startups constructing the foundation models that might someday connect the digital realm with the physical one.
The Data Problem
Karpas describes the central problem as something easy to grasp yet difficult to solve: robotics has no equivalent of the vast, shared datasets that companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic have assembled for natural language processing.
Waymo and its rivals built their datasets through years of accumulated road miles, and those collections keep growing market by market. Robotics has no equivalent scale at all.
The Real World AI Stage exists because a growing ecosystem of startups is attempting to build scale artificially through simulation, synthetic data, and foundation models trained across many robot forms at once. The problem of connecting the digital with the physical is what gives the stage its purpose.
The panel brings together founders from Shield AI, Colossal Biosciences, FieldAI, and Foxglove, who will share the distinct difficulties and openings they encounter as leaders of these companies.
Why Robotics Needs a ChatGPT Moment
The headline rests on a comparison to ChatGPT. Since November 2022, when a method of interacting with large language models emerged seemingly out of nowhere and propelled AI beyond mere hype into everyday reality, the world has not been the same.
The field of robotics has a long history of discussion, development, and adoption, yet it has not reached that major turning point. At Disrupt, the talk will explore the reasons behind this and what might finally bring about that change.
The Disrupt Lineup
The event runs from October 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. The lineup is AI-focused, ranging from building companies to building in the real world. Karpas’ session is part of that lineup.
The session carries the title “Robots Are Waiting for Their ChatGPT Moment.”, and it centers on the obstacles and openings in AI and robotics today. Karpas will lay out the barriers to general-purpose robots directly, based on his own experience in the field.
The Ticket Sell
Prices rise after September 25, so move fast and secure your ticket for up to $200 off. Gather a group and save up to 30%, because sharing the Disrupt experience is part of what makes it special.
“That kind of insight could give you a leg up on your competition or spark an idea that could fuel your next startup venture.”
Disrupt’s whole point is the kind of inspiration you can’t get from a seat at home; you need to be there in person, making connections with other people during the event itself.
The session is on the Real World AI Stage. It’s a chance to hear firsthand how Nvidia thinks about the single biggest bottleneck in physical AI, and what it’ll take to clear it. That kind of insight could give you a leg up on your competition or spark an idea that could fuel your next startup venture.
Karpas will travel to San Francisco to explain why robots are poised for a ChatGPT-style breakthrough.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.