At Web Summit 2026, robots are listed as official speakers

John KoetsierNovember 9, 2026

For the first time at a major tech conference, 4 humanoid robots appear on the official speaker list as named principals, alongside the largest Chinese tech delegation in Web Summit history.

I'm at Web Summit in Lisbon right now. And when you check the official speaker list for Web Summit 2026, you find the usual roster of founders, executives, and policy makers. And then you find 4 humanoid robots, listed as speakers.

Not as demos, not as props, but as principals with their own slots on the same agenda page as everyone else.

Web Summit opens today, November 9 in Lisbon, with 4 Chinese-made robots officially registered as speakers: AgiBot A3, AgiBot PrimeBOT Q1, Galbot G1, and Galbot ET1. All 4 are appearing on stage on opening night and participating in talks and practical demonstrations at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa and MEO Arena over the event's 4 days.

The Chinese delegation is the bigger story

The robot speakers are the headline, but the composition of the full conference tells the larger story.

Web Summit 2026 features the largest Chinese delegation in its history. More than 30 Chinese speakers in the first announced wave alone, with founder Paddy Cosgrave describing them as just the first of several announcements. Companies include Tencent, Xiaomi, XPENG, Pony.ai, Manus AI, Zhipu AI, MiniMax, AgiBot, Galbot, Unitree, and UBTECH.

The Chinese government sent official representatives too: China's Ministry of Commerce and the Cyberspace Administration of China are both attending.

"The big theme at Web Summit this year," Cosgrave said, "is the rise of Chinese open source models, and the increasing likelihood western AI companies are yesterday's news."

That's probably deliberately provocative from a conference organizer, but there's some data that suggests it's not completely off the wall: Chinese AI models went from roughly 6% of tokens on the OpenRouter platform in February 2026 to 57-67% by mid-September 2026.

(It helps that they're cheap: I use MiniMax for some of HumanoidMegaHub's functions.)

So ... how did they do?

The robots didn't doing amazingly well beyond the dancing.

Some took a long time to wake up and respond when questioned. Others kept interrupting speakers. It's clear that there's some room for improvement.

(I also noticed that Agibot's on-stage representative, William Shi from Agibot Europe dissed Unitree, saying Agibot robots dance and work, but Unitree robots only dance. He also say Tesla never shows its robots in public, and that Figure AI's robots can't dance.)

What comes next: Web Summit China?

Cosgrave has confirmed he's in discussions about a future Web Summit event in China. No city or date is confirmed. If that happens, the robot speaker slots in Lisbon will look like a preview.

I guess the other question is whether more conferences will bring robots on-stage as speakers. And if they'll perform a bit bitter next time.

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Written by

John Koetsier

I tell stories with data and build startups. I've raised angel and VC funds, led software companies and startups, and chronicled the rise of the mobile economy. Currently I write for Forbes, host several podcasts, and am starting up HumanoidMegaHub. I was TUNE's mobile economist and Singular's VP of Insights, built the research team at VentureBeat, and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In past lives I built websites, e-learning platforms, and mobile apps, and, a long time ago, was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”