Cerebras CEO says local, purchase-capable personal AI assistants are close, Feldman tells TechCrunch Disrupt

Andrew Feldman, chief executive of Cerebras Systems, told the TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 audience that personal AI assistants that run locally on consumer devices are close to becoming mainstream.

Speaking on stage at the conference, Feldman said the agents will split work between local hardware and cloud services, explaining "Just like your cell phone, they’ll do some work on device and some work going back to the cloud." He characterised the technology shift as driven by progress in consumer AI agents and chip design.

Feldman pointed to recent consumer-facing projects as examples of the trend, naming Meta’s Muse and the startup Instinct. TechCrunch reported that Instinct is valued at $10 billion, and Feldman used such advances to argue that AI is finding footing with everyday users.

He described how future assistants would form detailed profiles of users, saying they "will get to know you very well," and he added that people will place a security perimeter around those devices.

On the question of commerce, Feldman told the Disrupt audience that personal assistants will be capable of handling payments: "One of the reasons I love being in infrastructure is because I don’t need the consumer-facing idea … I like building the platforms that other people’s ideas take flight on," he said, and he explicitly said the assistants "will certainly have access to credit cards and be able to buy things for you." That claim frames forthcoming devices not only as information tools but as agents with purchasing capabilities tied to users' payment methods.

Feldman located Cerebras’s role in the ecosystem as an infrastructure and chipmaker, saying he prefers building the platforms that enable consumer innovation rather than consumer-facing products themselves. His remarks at Disrupt emphasised hardware and chip design improvements as enablers of the local-assistant vision, with the cloud still part of the computation mix.

TechCrunch’s account records these statements as made on stage at Disrupt; headlines from other outlets reflected the same central claim that Cerebras sees home AI assistants moving toward mainstream adoption and noted Feldman’s comments at the event. TechCrunch’s article includes direct quotations from Feldman and cites Instinct’s valuation as context for his remarks.

Feldman’s presentation frames a near-term pathway to assistants that combine on-device processing, cloud support, deep familiarity with users, and integrated payment access. The session underscored Cerebras’s positioning around the infrastructure that would support such consumer AI appliances, while attributing the consumer-facing ideas to other companies and startups.