Web Summit returns to Lisbon from 9 to 12 November 2026, and hundreds of AI startups will be on the exhibition floor. Most of them are a few people with a working product and a booth for one day only, so a plan helps.

We went through the public list of exhibiting AI startups and picked 40 worth a stop. They are grouped by what they build, with a line on each and a link to their website. Mark the ones you want to meet before you land.

Compute, data and infrastructure

1. Cala

Verified, sourced facts organised in a knowledge graph that AI agents query through an API, a CLI or MCP, instead of scraping and parsing the web. cala.ai

2. distil labs

A post-training platform that turns an agent's production traces into small, task-specific models that are cheaper and faster to run. distillabs.ai

3. Corbenic AI

Software called Galahad that installs on the GPU servers a company already rents and gets more work out of the same hardware. corbenic.ai

4. ParallelIQ

Tools that find wasted spend across a GPU fleet, lower the cost per token and show when more capacity will actually be needed. paralleliq.ai

5. RidgeScope

Finds the GPU hours lost to idle jobs, hangs, stragglers, I/O stalls and training runs that finish without learning. ridgescope.ai

6. Solnativo

Turns on-site solar power into GPU compute for AI, built behind the meter rather than drawing from the grid. solnativo.eu

7. Melious

More than 60 open-weight models served from European infrastructure, with APIs that work like OpenAI's and Anthropic's. melious.ai

8. Keewano

KeewanoDB, a database designed to give AI agents the context to answer questions that ordinary databases were not built for. keewano.com

9. Steelman Labs

Building the screen perception and action layer that lets frontier models use a computer reliably, quickly and cheaply. steelmanlabs.com

10. /hiasynth

A synthetic population of Europe, 541 million simulated people resolved down to the municipality, that any AI can query as a market analyst. hiasynth.co

Security and trust

11. BackDoor

Autonomous penetration testing: a swarm of AI agents attacks a company's external perimeter and proves each weakness with a working exploit. backdoor.tech

12. Forg3t Protocol

Selective unlearning for large language models, with the audit evidence teams need to show data was removed under GDPR and the EU AI Act. forg3t.io

13. Hexamind

Hexgate, an open-source layer that checks every tool call an AI agent makes against company policy before it runs. hexamind.ai

14. Summit Cognitive

Gives each AI-assisted decision a signed receipt: what the system saw, what it decided, under which rule and who approved it. summitcognitive.ai

Agents that do the work

15. Strawberry

A browser with AI companions that carry out tasks inside the accounts you are already signed into. strawberrybrowser.com

16. Cobalt

A cloud harness for coding agents that gives every task its own environment and lets teams automate recurring work. cobaltcode.ai

17. Thunders

AI agents that write, run and maintain automated software tests from plain-language instructions. thunders.ai

18. Sensay

Interviews employees before they leave, organises what they know and keeps it available to the team as a chat assistant. sensay.io

19. In Parallel

A shared context layer built from meetings and chats, so a company's AI tools work from what is happening now. in-parallel.com

20. GetVocal

Conversational AI for customer support at enterprise scale, with human oversight and compliance built in. getvocal.ai

21. Callsy

AI voice agents that call shoppers who abandoned their carts, for stores on Shopify, WooCommerce and WordPress. callsy.ai

22. Packpeer

An AI agent that designs, sources and delivers packaging for growing brands through a network of verified factories. packpeer.com

23. Keyban

Agent Wallet gives each AI agent its own account to pay for the services it uses, within rules set by the finance team. keyban.io

AI for specific industries

24. Armeta

AI for preconstruction that helps engineering firms, builders, asset owners and governments get from planning to execution faster. armeta.ai

25. flinq

A domain-specific AI API for architecture, engineering and construction: document extraction, embeddings and reranking, hosted in the EU. flinq.ai

26. Factum

An AI legal platform for researching legislation and case law across 28 European jurisdictions and drafting documents. factum.law

27. Clinstead

AI-native clinical research software that takes a study from protocol document to live study around one continuous model. clinstead.com

28. Mesh Bioplastics

VariControl, autonomous machine control for plastics manufacturing that adjusts to changing feedstock and corrects process drift. meshbioplastics.com

29. Tisalytics Bio

Turns microbial and environmental DNA into data that AI can use to detect biological risks earlier. tisalyticsbio.com

30. AlongWave

Marine weather intelligence for shipping and offshore operations, from forecasts to reconstructions of past conditions. alongwave.com

31. Curya

Treats shift scheduling as an optimisation problem and builds rosters in minutes, with full coverage and fair shifts. curya.co

32. Asili

Crop advice for farmers that works on low bandwidth and offline. asili.afroawi.com

Creative and consumer AI

33. ACTIE

An AI film studio that works in scenes rather than prompts, taking an idea through cast, locations and storyboard to a finished film. actie.ai

34. Makeable

Describe an object and get a 3D model you can refine, export or print, with no CAD experience needed. makeable.world

35. Sonilo

Music and sound effects generated to fit a video's story and length. sonilo.com

36. Generama

AI on-model photography for fashion e-commerce that turns product packshots into catalogue, editorial and video content. generama.ai

37. ScribeMe

Building AI that describes the world for blind and visually impaired people. scribeme-ai.com

38. Kalima

An app that helps parents raising children with two or more languages build language plans, routines and activities. kalima.family

39. Ottex

Voice-to-text for any Mac app, plus a meeting notetaker that runs in the background. ottex.ai

40. GeoGenie

Maps the sources behind AI search answers in a market and language, so brands can work out how to show up in them. geogenie.ai

Going to Lisbon? Save the date on our Web Summit 2026 event page, and look out for Monday's list of tech and AI events coming up.