Disrupt 2026 panel: when OpenAI ships your roadmap

The session reflects a shift the article describes in how AI founders frame competition. Not long ago, the concern was rival startups; today, the article says, the concern is foundation model companies from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google introducing entirely new capabilities every few months. That reframing runs through product strategy, fundraising, and valuations, changing the question from "Can we build it?" to "Can we still own it?"

The panel is deliberately mixed: a founder and operator in Michel Tricot of Airbyte — which the article says has grown to more than 7,000 customers, including 18% of the Fortune 500 — and Linda Tong of Webflow, alongside an investor, Rob Toews of Radical Ventures, who evaluates AI startups and where competitive advantages still exist. Their combined question is what a company can build that the platforms cannot simply ship themselves.

What the session hinges on is whether defensibility now comes from what models cannot easily replace: proprietary data, deeply embedded workflows, customer relationships, domain expertise, and trust. For founders, the practical stakes appear to be whether their product remains a business after the next model release, rather than becoming someone else's feature.