What comes after the smartphone? Amazon’s Panos Panay will make his case at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

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What comes after the smartphone? Amazon’s Panos Panay will make his case at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

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5:30 AM PDT · August 11, 2026

For nearly 20 years, the smartphone has been at the center of hardware and software development. But with AI moving from stand-alone apps to being interwoven in our go-to platforms, and then into the operating system of our devices, the shape of the next generation of hardware devices is still being developed.

And Amazon SVP of Devices and Services, Panos Panay, is as close to that development as anyone can get. He will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to deliver exclusive insights about how he sees the evolution of hardware progressing.

Disrupt has long been a place where the incumbents share where they’re placing their bets, and what impacts and opportunities startups need to know about. Your chance to get a jump-start on the competition starts October 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West . Before we dig into Panay and his upcoming talk, you should consider locking in today’s ticket pricing before our next tier goes live . Our discounts won’t last much longer!

Panay isn’t new to reinventing hardware categories under pressure. He spent more than 19 years at Microsoft, most notably working as their EVP and chief product officer, overseeing the development of a wide range of Surface devices, from to the original Surface Laptop from 2017 to the foldable Duo . While there, he also oversaw the development of Windows 11, in an overlap of software and hardware that’s becoming a mainstay in the AI era.

His departure from Microsoft was swiftly followed by the news he was joining Amazon , taking over from longtime consumer devices leader David Limp . Whereas Amazon had previously been very focused on the expansion of hardware through the home, Panay has been building around the generative AI revamp of Alexa, with the rollout of Alexa+ across several tiers of access in the U.S. earlier this year .

And at Disrupt, Panay will dive deeper into what’s coming up next for Amazon and Alexa+. As we potentially move into a world in which your daily routine doesn’t revolve around the phone in your hand, but on an assistant, a pair of glasses, or whatever form factor OpenAI is leaning into, the possibilities are endless! And that kind of future-forward thinking is available only at Disrupt .

Join us and hear Panay, and our many other excellent speakers, along with more than 10,000 founders, investors, and startup community members gathering in San Francisco. Remember to grab your ticket today , or dive deeper into our other Disrupt highlights as we get closer to the event.

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