Open or closed AI? How founders are choosing what to build on at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

For AI startups, choosing a model isn’t necessarily a one-time architecture decision anymore.

Open models are improving. Frontier APIs keep advancing. Models can be customized for specific workloads, and some companies are building products that use multiple models rather than committing to one. That gives founders more ways to build — and more decisions about where to spend, what to own, and how much flexibility to preserve as the technology changes.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, four conversations approach those decisions…