Laplace Intelligence red-teams robots and self-driving cars before they hit the real world

University of Michigan spinout Laplace Intelligence uses AI agents and interactive simulation to stress-test robots and self-driving vehicles before deployment. The profitable startup is competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt, October 13-15 in San Francisco. If there’s one lesson the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident taught us, it’s that AI agents can be unpredictable. “Imagine if something like that happened in the physical world,” Howie Sun, CEO and co-founder of Laplace Intelligence, told TechCrunch. “AI agents are moving from computers into the real world, and we don’t really want physical AI to fail in the real world.” Ann Arbor-based Laplace is building automated red-teaming — essentially, stress-testing a system by deliberately trying to make it fail — for robotics and physical AI.

The company is betting that the only way to make sure physical AI is safe is to have AI test it. “Our goal is to help companies discover and fix problems before deployment — and, over time, build a shared foundation of evidence that customers, insurers, and regulators can trust,” Sun said. Laplace is one of 20 startups competing in Startup Battlefield 200, the startup pitch competition taking place at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco this week, October 13-15. It will present on the Disrupt Stage Tuesday afternoon, October 13. Sun, alongside his co-founder and chief scientist Henry Liu,