VivaTech Day 3: Must-See Sessions for Friday 19 June
- Partner At Future
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
Friday is the day VivaTech 2026 earns its reputation. After two days of warm-up, the closing sessions are where speakers stop being careful and start being honest. Today's lineup is stacked with builders who have shipped billion-dollar products, investors who have written the checks that shaped the internet, and a robotics founder who might just convince you that the physical world is the next software frontier. If you are standing in a queue for coffee right now, put the cup down and read this first.
The day kicks off at **11:00 CET on the VivaTech Theater** with what could be the most urgent conversation in tech: Pascal Gauthier of Ledger and Melissa Bell of CNN square off on Keeping Humans in Control: Trust, Security and Ownership in the AI Era. For founders building on top of AI APIs, this is the session that asks the question your legal team is already losing sleep over: who actually owns the output, and what happens when it goes wrong? Expect blunt takes on regulation, liability, and why security is now a product feature, not an afterthought. Then at **12:00 CET**, also on the VivaTech Theater, William Shi of Agibot Europe takes the stage for AI Gets a Body: The Age of Humanoid Robots. If you are an investor who has been watching the humanoid space from the sidelines, this is your briefing. Agibot is one of the fastest-moving players in physical AI, and Shi rarely speaks publicly at European events. Watch for any hint of a European expansion announcement or partnership signal.
**12:30 CET** brings one of the most intellectually loaded pairings of the week: Tony Fadell of Build Collective and Ian Rogers of Ledger on Second Order AI, VivaTech Theater. Fadell designed the iPod and Nest, which means he has a track record of seeing what technology actually becomes after the hype cycle ends. This session is not about what AI can do today. It is about the downstream consequences that will blindside every founder who is not paying attention. Block this one hard. At **14:05 CET**, Alexis Ohanian of Seven Seven Six sits down for A Conversation With Alexis Ohanian on the VivaTech Theater. Ohanian co-founded Reddit, then built one of the most founder-friendly VC funds of the last decade. If you are raising a seed or Series A and you can get a seat in that room, the Q&A alone could be worth your entire trip to Paris.
The session every founder building an AI product needs to close the day is at **17:00 CET on the Red Stage**: Romain Huet of OpenAI on From Idea to Launch. Huet leads developer experience at OpenAI, which means he sits at the exact intersection of what the models can do and what builders actually need. This session answers the question that every startup in the room is wrestling with: how do you go from a working prototype to a real product with real users? For investors, it is a live benchmark of where the OpenAI ecosystem is directing its energy, and that is a signal worth catching in person.
Today's schedule rewards the decisive. Pick your sessions now, position yourself near the stage early, and treat the hallways between slots as deal-flow corridors. Follow FutureFeed for live coverage throughout the day.
