Andreessen Horowitz

Is robotics primed for a "ChatGPT moment”? AI is advancing rapidly in modalities like text, images, video, and audio, but we haven’t seen similar breakthroughs in physical actions/robotics. Recent progress, though, suggests a shift could be coming. Scaling laws, vision-language models, and cross-embodiment methods are paving the way for a horizontal platform that could empower robotics developers with a standard set of components. A "ChatGPT moment" for robotics might not be a single product, but rather an ecosystem of tools and applications that enables many popular products. According to Oliver Hsu, the robotics field faces challenges, but with new talent, capital, and research, there are plenty of reasons for optimism. His thoughts on what a functional market structure for a new robotics will look like: https://lnkd.in/eVSjqK62

Latin America is emerging as a tech powerhouse. But it's a mistake to view the region as a one-size-fits-all market. In the latest episode of the a16z podcast, Dileep Thazhmon (CEO and founder of Jeeves), Santiago Suarez (cofounder of Addi), Gabriel Vasquez and Angela Strange discuss the separate needs and traits of these countries, and the future of fintech in LatAm. 👇

Far from dealing a deathblow to the salesforce by automating all sales jobs, genAI could actually usher in a golden era of sales—and lead to a massive boom in rep hiring. New genAI-powered sales tech will likely automate most of reps’ administrative work, which will make sales orgs significantly more efficient and productive by: * Shaving down the number of support roles managers need to hire per AE * Shortening ramp times * Most importantly, giving reps more time to focus on what genAI CAN’T automate: high-touch, consultative selling. At its core, sales helps customers learn how to evaluate and buy software. Given the genAI-powered rise of developer productivity, we’re going to see a lot of new software come to market—which means we’re going to need a lot more salespeople to help buyers understand how that software will solve their problems. The more productive ramped reps you have, the more revenue you bring in. As long as we don’t see declining marginal rates of productivity for each AE hired, we’ll likely see companies clambering to hire more reps. More productivity leads to more reps leads to more revenue. What do you think? 

Viggle is about precise control, says CEO and cofounder Hang Chu. That's extremely important, even when you're creating projects some would call "silly," he says. Hang Chu discusses some Viggle-powered "viral" moments, and how the company is redefining video creation by providing precise control over character movements and animations, at the video in our comments 👇

Ideogram uses generative AI for seamless text rendering in images, balancing accuracy and aesthetics for diverse applications — from memes to professional design. Cofounder and CEO Mohammad Norouzi discusses their journey from an early viral model to advanced features like prompt adherence, which enables detailed prompts and nuanced visual communication.

Why will healthcare be the industry that benefits the most from AI? ⚡️ the leapfrog opportunity given lack of sunk cost bias due to low adoption of enterprise SaaS tools in the last 2 decades ⚡️ the existential supply-demand mismatch crisis ⚡️ the existence of regulatory rails for clinical AI ⚡️ the opportunity to disrupt ~$trillions of services TAM vs just the ~$billions of software TAM 📺 https://lnkd.in/gvApZMwU 📑 https://lnkd.in/gefi45X8 a16z Bio + Health Andreessen Horowitz

Thanks to AI, we are witnessing potentially the greatest transmutation in history. Software becomes labor. It’s the new E=MC2, writes Alastair (Alex) Rampell. Capital buys coffee, engineers, and GPUs. Out comes code that takes the role of labor. This will both grow existing software markets and create many new software markets where “per seat” pricing never allowed for a large outcome. Historically, much of software digitized an offline form of storage, put it in a database, and then provided an accessible, permissionable front-end for the end-user who likely did not know SQL, with the speed benefits of a digitized, networked medium. And now, the big change: the “users” of the digitized filing cabinet do not have to be humans. With that said, this does not mean the end of white-collar work, Alex says, but could be the contrary – if anything, AI will likely create new “AI jobs” that just weren’t possible with human costs or intermittent demand. Alex dives into the many opportunities in the space, and the effects of software becoming labor: https://lnkd.in/etUzKi2Z

The interface between programmers and AI models will soon become one of the most important pieces of the dev stack, which is why we’re thrilled to announce we are leading the series A round for Cursor. Cursor is a fork of VS Code that’s heavily customized for AI-assisted programming; works with all the latest LLMs and supports the full VS Code plugin ecosystem; and is loaded with features designed to integrate AI into developer workflows. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Michael T., Aman Sanger, Sualeh A., Arvid Lunnemark and the rest of the Cursor team to help them realize their vision for the future of programming. More here from Matt Bornstein, Marco Mascorro, Rajko Radovanović and Martin Casado: https://lnkd.in/epeRWzvz

In the onslaught of AI product launches and hyped-up features, it’s worth asking: Which of these gen AI apps are people actually using? And which of them are people returning to, versus dabbling and dropping? Welcome to the third installment of the Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps. Every six months, we take a deeper dive into the data to rank the top 50 AI-first web products (by unique monthly visits, according to Similarweb) and top 50 AI-first mobile apps (by monthly active users, according to Sensor Tower.) This time, nearly 30 percent of the companies were new. Here are some of our top takeaways: 1️⃣ Video and music-related tools are on the rise 2️⃣ Competing assistants are challenging ChatGPT 3️⃣ ByteDance is getting in the game, making a push into web-based AI products 4️⃣ There’s a new category in the space: Aesthetics and dating 5️⃣ Discord helps drive growth See the full report by Olivia Moore: https://lnkd.in/exUqJXRn

Is AI ready to revolutionize banking, or is human trust the real roadblock? On "In the Vault" this week, a16z's David Haber and Marc Andrusko try to answer that question, with Citi's Timothy Karpoff. Plus, they discuss AI's biggest potential impacts in banking. 🎧 Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts: https://lnkd.in/e5iSJx2C