Equity
Equity
TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, Theresa Loconsolo
Who’s the sheriff in AI’s wild west? (Equity Live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026)
29 minutes Posted Oct 14, 2026 at 3:13 pm.
Intro and what we’re excited for at Disrupt 
Durability, security, and Anthropic’s rogue agents 
Nadella’s “emergency brake” post 
NVIDIA’s OpenShell and the engineering-vs-regulation debate 
The agent security startup boom: AIR, Reco, Cymphony 
When agents go rogue in real life 
Certifications and standards 
 HiddenLayer and the jump to production 
Will Big Tech just acquire these startups? 
Consumer trust and agent adoption 
Predictions: acquisitions vs. independent verifiers 
 What’s coming up at Disrupt 
Outro 
0:00
29:13
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Show notes
The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: what happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check? 
Recent incidents, from Anthropic pulling internal evaluations off the live internet after agents misbehaved to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling for an “emergency brake” on AI models, have brought agent security into focus. The Equity team unpacked whether the problem calls for better engineering, new regulation, or both, and why startups are raising millions to secure AI agents. 
Listen to the full episode to hear more about: 
The Anthropic agent mishaps, including a false police report that went nowhere after landing in a spam folder 
Nadella’s call for an AI emergency brake, and why the hosts wonder what took so long 
The funding race to secure AI agents, from AIR’s $50 million raise to Reco’s $55 million and Oak’s $60 million for agent identity, plus Sequoia-backed Cymphony 
Why independent verification and certification could be key to building trust, and whether Big Tech will buy its way out of the problem 
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads. 
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