Preview #WS26: Real Madrid, Formula 1 and the AI Arms Race
Web Summit 2026 reveals what footballers, founders, media bosses and AI entrepreneurs have in common: competition, status and the fear of who is being replaced.
From AI bosses and billion-dollar startups to Real Madrid stars, Formula 1 executives and the people trying to regulate Big Tech, Web Summit 2026 brings some serious egos to Lisbon. The technology is changing. The human behaviour? Not so much. Everyone in tech claims to be changing the world. Fewer seem particularly keen to discuss who gets to own the new one.
From 9–12 November, Web Summit returns to Lisbon, assembling the usual fascinating mix of ambitious founders, powerful executives, investors hunting the next unicorn, politicians trying to keep up and celebrities discovering that being famous is also a business model.
The confirmed speaker lineup includes Richard Socher, the AI entrepreneur behind Recursive and You.com; Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare; Reddit COO Jen Wong; Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes; and European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen. Then there's tennis champion Maria Sharapova, Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Williams F1 boss James Vowles, four-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson and journalist Don Lemon. Not exactly the same dressing room, but increasingly the same conversation.
Artificial intelligence is once again dominating the agenda. Only now the questions are becoming less comfortable. Who pays for it? Who owns it? What happens to the people whose jobs it can do? And how much power should we hand to companies whose business models we barely understand?
There will be robots, pitches, panels and enough networking to make an introvert consider changing careers.
But beneath the shiny technology, Web Summit is really a gathering about something far more familiar: money, power, status and the fear of becoming irrelevant.
The Lowdown
The event: Web Summit 2026, 9–12 November, Lisbon, Portugal.
The big names: Richard Socher, Matthew Prince, Jen Wong, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Henna Virkkunen, Maria Sharapova and Thibaut Courtois are among the announced speakers.
The AI reality check: Autonomous systems, software development, infrastructure costs and whether AI companies can turn enormous ambition into actual profits.
The power struggle: Europe wants technological independence while much of its digital economy relies on platforms built elsewhere.
The human problem: AI-generated content, synthetic performers and increasingly automated workplaces challenge how we value human creativity and expertise.
The sporting crossover: Elite athletes and F1 executives bring a different perspective on pressure, investment, competition and staying relevant.
The big question: If technology makes everyone more productive, who actually gets the rewards?
“When AI Builds Itself”
THE AI BOOM IS ENTERING ITS AWKWARD PHASE.
For years, artificial intelligence has been sold as the answer to almost everything.
Need more productivity? AI. Better customer service? AI. Need to write an email you can't be bothered writing? Obviously, AI.
Now the industry has a rather less glamorous problem: making the economics work.
Richard Socher, co-founder and CEO of Recursive and You.com, is among the leading AI voices heading to Lisbon. His scheduled sessions include When AI builds itself and The eureka machine, exploring a future in which increasingly capable AI systems become part of developing the next generation of technology.
Meanwhile, Michele Catasta, president and head of AI at Replit, represents another disruptive part of the industry: software that allows people to build applications without conventional coding skills.
It's an extraordinary proposition. But it's also a threat to established professional hierarchies.
What happens when something you spent ten years mastering becomes a task somebody else can complete with a well-written instruction?
And if everyone can build software, what makes a software developer valuable?
The challenge is no longer simply proving that AI works. It's demonstrating that companies can make money from it without spending increasingly absurd amounts on the infrastructure required to run it.
The technology might be revolutionary. The business model still has to work.
The next AI winners might not be the companies making the biggest promises. They might be the ones that work out how to pay the electricity bill.
“The Agentic Internet: Who Controls the Web?”
SOMEONE HAS TO OWN THE DIGITAL MOTORWAY.
The internet was supposed to give everyone a voice. It also created some spectacularly powerful gatekeepers.
Now we're entering another phase, one in which AI agents could increasingly search, shop, negotiate and complete tasks on our behalf.
Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince is scheduled to join The Atlantic's Nick Thompson for The agentic internet: Who controls the web?
It sounds technical. The underlying problem is not.
If AI becomes the way people interact with the internet, whoever controls the infrastructure, data and access points gains considerable influence over what we see and what we buy.
And while tech companies compete, Europe's politicians are asking whether an entire continent should remain so dependent on systems controlled elsewhere.
European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen brings questions of technological sovereignty, security and democracy to Lisbon.
The tension is almost comical.
Europe wants to become more independent of American technology, while many of its most ambitious businesses still depend on international cloud platforms, software and capital.
Everybody wants an open internet. Just preferably one where they control the doors.
“Maintaining the Human in an AI World”
THE INTERNET IS FULL OF PEOPLE. ARE WE SURE THEY'RE REAL?
Reddit COO Jen Wong is scheduled to take Centre Stage for a session with a title that feels increasingly relevant: Maintaining the human in an AI world.
For a platform built around conversations between strangers, this is more than a philosophical question.
Reddit's appeal has long rested on people sharing experiences, arguments, niche obsessions and advice that doesn't sound like it was approved by a marketing department.
From relationship disasters and workplace complaints to obscure hobbies and brutally honest product reviews, people visit Reddit because they want to know what other people actually think.
But when AI can generate convincing opinions, reviews and responses at almost no cost, genuine human interaction starts looking like a premium product.
It's an uncomfortable contradiction for the technology industry.
Platforms spent years trying to automate engagement, optimise attention and increase the amount of content people consume.
Now some may find themselves having to prove that the conversations happening on their platforms involve actual humans.
There's an irony here. The more technology learns to imitate us, the more valuable being unmistakably human might become.
Even on the internet, authenticity is becoming a status symbol.
“Who Controls the Future of Media?”
EVERYBODY'S A PUBLISHER. NOT EVERYBODY'S A JOURNALIST.
The media industry has spent years chasing attention. Now it's having to defend the value of what it produces.
Journalist Don Lemon joins Beehiiv co-founder Tyler Denk for a discussion about who controls the future of media. It's a particularly relevant conversation when individual personalities can develop audiences that rival established news organisations, while newsletters and independent digital outlets compete directly with traditional publishers.
The old hierarchy is breaking down.
A journalist no longer necessarily needs a newsroom to reach millions of people. A creator doesn't need a television network to become a media business. And an audience doesn't always distinguish between an experienced reporter, an entertaining commentator and somebody who's simply very good at attracting attention.
Elsewhere, Reuters News president Paul Bascobert, Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace and Le Monde CEO Louis Dreyfus are scheduled to examine AI's growing role in editorial decision-making.
With The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes also among the confirmed speakers, Lisbon will have plenty of people who understand what happens when technology changes the economics of information.
AI doesn't need a salary, a lunch break or a publishing deadline. It can produce thousands of pieces of content before a human journalist has finished their first coffee.
What it can't automatically supply is accountability, judgement or the credibility that comes from doing the work properly.
The industry spent years optimising for clicks.
Now it may have to convince audiences that an actual person did the thinking.
The Dressing Room Has Become a Boardroom
SPORT, STATUS AND LIFE AFTER THE FINAL WHISTLE.
One of the more revealing parts of Web Summit's lineup has very little to do with writing code.
Maria Sharapova, Thibaut Courtois, James Vowles and Michael Johnson are all confirmed speakers. Four very different sporting careers, connected by performance, competition and the increasingly commercial world surrounding elite athletes.
Sharapova has built a business identity beyond tennis. Courtois is not only a Real Madrid goalkeeper but also an investor through NXTPLAY Capital.
Williams F1 team principal James Vowles operates in a sport where engineering, money, political manoeuvring and human judgement are inseparable.
And Michael Johnson brings the perspective of someone who spent his career competing in a profession where success and failure can be separated by hundredths of a second.
The crossover makes sense.
Sport is obsessed with many of the same things as technology: finding advantages, attracting money, recruiting talent and beating the competition.
But there's another, more human connection.
Every dressing room has a hierarchy. So does every startup.
There's the established star, the ambitious newcomer, the person who thinks they're underpaid and the one quietly wondering how long they can keep their place.
There's ego, insecurity, resentment, loyalty and the constant pressure to prove that you're still worth your position.
A footballer approaching the end of a career and a tech executive watching AI threaten their business might have more in common than either would enjoy admitting.
Both understand what it means to be successful in a system that never stops looking for your replacement.
The difference is that in sport, everyone can usually see the scoreboard.
In business, there's often an argument about who gets to design it.
The Money Is Getting More Selective
EVERY FOUNDER HAS A VISION. INVESTORS WOULD ALSO LIKE A BUSINESS.
For all the famous faces and keynote presentations, much of the real business happens away from the main stage.
Founders meet investors. Investors meet other investors. People exchange details, promise to follow up and quietly assess whether the person opposite them is genuinely useful.
Web Summit's Venture Summit will bring together investors and entrepreneurs to examine the changing realities of startup funding.
The programme includes Rethinking venture capital, featuring Cleo Capital founder Sarah Kunst and Antler partner RJ Schuurs, alongside discussions about how artificial intelligence, geopolitics and new technologies are changing where investors place their bets.
Established founders including Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian and Markus Villig of Bolt are among the names heading to Lisbon, while newer AI businesses such as Replit, Lovable and Manus represent another generation trying to reshape how work gets done.
The startup world has always been particularly good at creating its own language.
Every founder is disrupting something. Every business is transforming an industry. Every pitch deck contains a market opportunity that appears to be worth several billion dollars.
Eventually, though, someone will ask how much it costs to acquire a customer and when the company will make money.
At that point, confidence becomes slightly less useful than arithmetic.
For the wider startup ecosystem, another question hangs over the event: is the rush to invest in AI making it harder for companies working on everything else to get noticed?
The future might belong to AI. But somebody still needs to build the rest of the economy.
AI Wants to Be an Actor Now, Too
THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES HAVE A NEW COMPETITOR THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE A TRAILER.
One of Web Summit's more provocative sessions moves the conversation from replacing office tasks to replacing performers.
Particle 6 founder Eline van der Velden and the synthetic AI character Tilly Norwood are scheduled to feature in a Future of Work discussion examining AI actors and the future of entertainment.
The business appeal is easy to understand.
Digital performers offer producers new possibilities for creating content, controlling production and potentially reducing costs.
The human implications are messier.
Actors don't simply sell their image. They sell interpretation, personality, timing, emotion and years of experience.
So what happens when a synthetic character can deliver something that looks like a performance without living any of it?
And if audiences become attached to digital personalities, does the distinction even matter commercially?
It's not difficult to imagine entertainment executives becoming excited about performers who never age, never arrive late and never negotiate a contract.
It's considerably harder to imagine human performers sharing that enthusiasm.
The entertainment industry is already familiar with difficult conversations about ownership, royalties, image rights and creative control.
AI gives it a few more.
The Real Fear Isn't Technology. It's Being Replaced.
EVERYBODY LOVES DISRUPTION UNTIL IT ARRIVES AT THEIR OWN DESK.
Look across the Web Summit 2026 programme and one tension keeps appearing.
The people building new technology are excited about how much it can change.
The people responsible for existing businesses are trying to work out how to survive those changes.
The politicians want innovation without surrendering control. Investors want opportunities without unacceptable risk. Workers want the benefits of automation without discovering that they're the thing being automated.
And the irony is that even some of the people leading this technological revolution may eventually find themselves threatened by the next one.
A startup founder builds an AI product that makes an established business obsolete. Another startup develops something cheaper, faster and better. Suddenly, the disruptor is the one being disrupted.
There's nothing particularly new about the behaviour underneath it.
People want recognition. They want security. They want influence. They want to believe the years they've invested in building a career still count for something.
Technology changes the tools. It doesn't remove the human need to matter.
Perhaps that's what makes Web Summit such an intriguing event.
It's full of people who are extraordinarily confident about changing the future, while operating in industries where nobody can be certain they'll remain relevant.
The Bigger Picture: Who Gets a Say?
Web Summit has always been a place where ambition, money, influence and optimism collide.
In 2026, those conversations could carry a sharper edge.
AI promises productivity while creating anxiety about employment. Social platforms depend on human engagement while introducing increasingly automated systems. Governments want innovation but are concerned about losing control.
Meanwhile, athletes, journalists, filmmakers and entrepreneurs are confronting their own versions of the same problem: how do you stay valuable when the rules keep changing?
And as those industries enter the same conversations as AI founders and technology executives, one thing becomes clear.
The digital economy is no longer a separate industry. It is changing the rules across almost every other one.
For four days in Lisbon, the people building, financing and regulating that future will share a stage.
The biggest question isn't whether technology will change our lives. That argument is largely over.
It's who gets to decide what those changes look like — and who is left dealing with the consequences.
What's Next?
When is Web Summit 2026? 9–12 November 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Who are the headline speakers? Announced names include Richard Socher, Matthew Prince, Jen Wong, Henna Virkkunen, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Michele Catasta, Maria Sharapova, Thibaut Courtois, James Vowles, Michael Johnson and Don Lemon.
What will dominate the agenda? Artificial intelligence, the future of the internet, digital sovereignty, venture capital, media, automation and technology's influence on sport and entertainment.
What should we watch most closely? The gap between AI's extraordinary technical promises and the commercial, political and human realities of delivering them.
What happens after Lisbon? The harder work begins: turning the promises made on stage into businesses, policies and technologies that survive contact with the real world.
