Web Summit Lisbon 2026: public notes and recap posts

Web Summit wrote that the Government of Portugal had formally advised that, “due to the risks posed by Storm Charles, including tidal flooding, severe disruption to public transport and the impact of high winds on external structures, Day 2 of Web Summit should not take place.” The post says this followed discussions with the Portuguese Government, the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC), and the Public Security Police (PSP). “Web Summit will of course respect the Government’s direction, and accordingly, Day 2 (Wednesday, November 11th) will not take place.” The organisers said they aimed to proceed with Thursday, 12 November, after the storm, and would communicate directly with those impacted.

The same page was later updated with a note dated Wednesday, 11 November: “Web Summit is officially back on tomorrow – Thursday – for our final day.”

“Web Summit is officially back on tomorrow – Thursday – for our final day. It will be our busiest Thursday ever with more speakers and more meetups than ever before, with many rescheduled from Wednesday. Keep an eye on the schedule later today for updates.”

Web Summit said Thursday stage content would start at 9am and run to 5.30pm, including through lunchtime. “We’re rescheduling talks from Wednesday into tomorrow.” The post said more than 100 speakers from Wednesday would appear on Thursday, 65 community and partner meetups were moved, and more than 125 meetups would take place that day. The mobile app and online schedule would be updated.

The official Web Summit account also posted on 12 November: “Welcome to the last day of #WebSummit 2026! Yesterday may have been cancelled, but we are making up for it in a huge way. Today is officially Web Summit’s biggest-ever day of content and meetups!”

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In this official post, Web Summit stated:

• 70,003 attendees from 164 countries
• 1,943 investors
• more than 10,000 startups attending, and 3,052 exhibiting companies from 110 countries
• 960 speakers
• 350 Portuguese startups and 115 Irish startups
• more than 1,500 members of the media reporting from the event

The post quotes founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave at Opening Night: “Welcome to the most global Web Summit ever. We are joined by attendees from 164 countries, more than ever before.” Cosgrave also said: “Brazil, like every country in the global south, continues to grow its presence here and that growth is reflected in this Web Summit… more startups are coming from São Paulo than Paris.” And: “This year has, without a doubt, the most important lineup of technology speakers we ever had. And they are all from China. Because Chinese companies are building more of our shared Future than companies from anywhere else. And we should open our eyes to that future.” He also said: “This year we have the largest number of Portuguese startups at Web Summit ever.”

The same post says Opening Night featured dancing humanoid robots from AgiBot and flying-car technology from Xpeng AeroHT. It also cites PitchBook data on attending investors, and an EY report on Web Summit’s economic contribution in Portugal over the past decade.

Web Summit named Carevision, a US female-founded startup with headquarters in Saudi Arabia, the winner of the 2026 PITCH competition, against 105 shortlisted startups. The official post describes the product as technology that uses a 30-second face scan to measure vital signs and assess cardiometabolic health risks. It says the semi-finals were rescheduled to Thursday morning after Wednesday’s weather-related suspension, with the final later that day.

The post quotes founder and CEO Dr. Amani Abulaban: “Cardiovascular disease remains the world’s leading cause of death, with millions of people living with undetected risks without knowing it until it’s too late.” And: “Our mission is to make screening and risk detection accessible, affordable, and scalable worldwide.” Also: “Taking part in PITCH has been really exciting. We met industry leaders and got on a global stage. We are planning to expand globally, and this was the first step.” The official runners-up were Zoyk and Moola Money.

The closing post repeats the official attendance figures above, and says Thursday was “its biggest ever for stage content and meetups,” with more than 100 speakers rescheduled and more than 125 meetups that day.

Euronews reported that dancing robots from Agibot opened the conference on Monday at the MEO Arena. It quoted Paddy Cosgrave telling an audience of up to 12,000 people: “The superstars of the future are not coming from California; they’re coming from China.” And: “Chinese companies are building more of our shared future than anyone else.”

The article also quoted Cloudflare cofounder and CEO Matthew Prince, asked about news involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: “it’s very salacious,” and that in the long term it remains to be seen if he would be “a hero or villain,” adding that “Jensen did a lot to cement the AI ecosystem.”

On AI agents, Euronews wrote that Manus AI showed a 30-second AI-generated video from its 2.0 video technology that required a 13-word prompt. Tao Zhang, co-founder and CPO of Manus, said: “We found the people we are looking for; it’s not just a good attitude. We don’t need more people; we need people who can work with AI.”

This report covers Opening Night remarks by Cosgrave, Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, and Portugal’s Minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Matias, plus a discussion moderated by CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal with Matthew Prince (Cloudflare), Anton Osika (Lovable) and Richard Socher (Recursive and You.com), and demonstrations from XPENG Aeroht, UBTech, Galbot and AGIBOT.

Quoted in the piece:

• Carlos Moedas: “No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you believe, you belong here.” And: “Difference and diversity is the mother of innovation.”
• Gonçalo Matias: “Technology does not fix a broken process, it accelerates it.”
• Matthew Prince: “There’s clearly real demand for AI, and there’s clearly real benefit that consumers and businesses are getting from it.” And: “We’re figuring out where is the real ROI for companies in AI.”
• Anton Osika: “Our mission is about making people successful with their ideas, whatever those ideas are.”
• Richard Socher: “Recursive self-improvement means that AI can help us build better AI.”
• Zhao Deli, founder of XPENG Aeroht: “Our vision at XPENG Aeroht is to make flying freedom and let everyone to become the pilot.”

Xinhua reported on Galbot’s G1 robot, Zhao Deli’s presentation of XPENG ARIDGE’s Land Aircraft Carrier, and a Tuesday panel, “The Open Source Advantage,” with representatives from ModelBest, MiniMax and True Ventures. Ahti Heinla, co-founder of Starship Technologies, told Xinhua: “China is a massive manufacturing power,” and “I think these are complementary solutions,” referring to different robot and vehicle designs serving different markets. Zhao, in an interview with Xinhua, said the technology could initially serve recreational flying and emergency rescue before expanding to point-to-point transportation.

Euronews published the same official wording sent to attendees about the government’s advice and the cancellation of Wednesday, 11 November. It reported that the event was taking place at FIL, in Parque das Nações, and that Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas had earlier suggested the summit should be cancelled, but left the decision to the central government and the organisers. It also reported that the Minister of Internal Administration said schools and non-essential public services would be closed nationwide the next day.

The Portugal News wrote that the event resumed on 12 November, and that it would not be extended until Friday. It said the cancellation of Wednesday’s programme was announced on Tuesday in an email sent at 7:39pm, and that the event was being held at MEO Arena and FIL in Parque das Nações. The article also repeats the official attendance and investor figures, and Cosgrave’s opening-night quotes.

Público reported that Carevision won PITCH 2026 on Thursday. It quoted founder Amani Abulaban on stage: “Quero dizer que venho da Palestina e que o povo palestiniano está aqui representado.” And: “Apesar de tudo o que está a acontecer na Palestina, conseguimos construir uma empresa tecnológica muito sólida.” The paper also wrote that the Portuguese startup Humanos was named the most promising company in Road 2 Web Summit 2026, a programme promoted by Startup Portugal with Web Summit, and received a prize of 15,000 euros, with support from Galp. It said 78 Portuguese startups were selected for that edition.

Tek Notícias reported that the audience vote went to Zoyk with 42%, followed by Carevision with 32% and Moola with 26%, and that the judges then chose Carevision. It quoted George Hayes of KPMG describing the judging as very difficult and decided at the limit of time.

Tek Notícias interviewed attendees during Day 1 about what they were looking for, and how the weather was changing plans:

• Katherine Batista, a Portuguese attendee: “Esperemos que amanhã não feche tudo.”
• Rui Cainé, visiting from Aveiro with a group of four from engineering: “Já mudámos o comboio para regressar hoje à noite.” And: “Se não fosse o alerta vermelho, teríamos continuado, mas já não conseguimos vir amanhã de manhã.” He also said: “Queremos perceber o que é que os concorrentes estão a fazer, o que é que as empresas que lideram o mercado têm no roadmap para o futuro.”
• Sabrina Goerlich, originally from Germany and living in Lisbon for two months, said she already knew her daughter would not have school the next day, and asked: “Estava a pensar: o que vai acontecer com o Web Summit? Talvez também fiquemos em casa?”
• Vishka Ivonito, originally from Indonesia and living in Germany: “Se não for seguro para todos nós, então tudo bem se não houver Web Summit amanhã.” She also said she wanted to learn about what is happening in AI and meet new people.
• Hila Safi, from Germany, attending for the fifth time: “Adoro a cidade, por isso não, não estou preocupada com a chuva.” And: “Gosto de vir ao Web Summit porque me inspira.” The article also quotes her saying that technology is a source of inspiration, and that people from around the world face different challenges and bring different approaches.

Filip Strüven wrote that a surprise this year was “the number of companies that actually now help us use technology less,” naming the Mudita phone and Lumi. He also wrote that many companies on the floor were new AI-related technologies, and that “trendy intellectual ‘gossip’ and philosophy made an appearance as Nvidia’s latest news surrounding their CEO was discussed on stage.”

• TechSales (@techsalestr), 11 November 2026: “Great first day in Lisbon: old friends, new connections and a lovely conversation with the Turkish Ambassador to Portugal. Day 2 is cancelled due to Storm Charles. We’ll be back at the Summit on Thursday!” View post
• Arc Compute (@ArcCompute), 10 November 2026: “Day 1 at Web Summit Lisbon done. Took part in two Web Summit Venture roundtables, ‘AI startups: Signals of real vs hype’ and ‘Funding the grid: Can VC bridge the gap between AI compute demand and energy realities?’ Great meeting so many investors and founders.” View post
• Tetiana Stepanets (@tetiana_ai), 11 November 2026: “Storm Charles closed Web Summit Day 2. I was due to present Lilidi Twin at my booth A7-09 today. Instead: rain over Lisbon. Booth talk postponed. Yesterday’s pitch was the good part.” View post
• Artem Boiko (@bond_zns), 12 November 2026: “Day 2 of @WebSummit was cancelled because of the storm. Day 3 and we’re finally back. Badge on, coffee in hand, ready to go.” View post
• Transfero (@transferogroup), 12 November 2026: “Last day at @WebSummit! Guilherme Murtinho on the MoneyConf stage, talking about how the world’s biggest companies move money. Thank you, Lisbon.” View post
• Replit (@Replit), 12 November 2026, posted a public recap livestream titled “2026 Web Summit Recap (Replit Live).” View post