Where else can you still invest in AI (even with rising competition)? \ stacker news ~AI

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I've been thinking about where smart money is still flowing in AI, and a few patterns are becoming clear.

The monetisation shift is real. We've moved from charging for user seats to charging for cognitive work completed. AI products are increasingly selling outcomes rather than access — saved hours, automated processes and solved problems. This isn't just a change in pricing models; it's a complete change in how founders think about creating value.

Despite the noise, coding remains wide open. Of course, everyone knows about Copilot, Cursor and Devin, but the fundamental question of user experience remains unanswered. Will we get embedded AI assistants within existing tools? Or will we have autonomous agents that can write, test and deploy code independently? Or will base models simply absorb these capabilities, reducing the market to pure infrastructure? The coding sector isn't just another niche — it's potentially the path to AGI, and competition here will be foundational rather than feature-based.

Model generations unlock entirely new markets. The important thing is not whether you are 'too late' to invest in AI, but understanding what becomes possible with each new model release. The winners won't necessarily be the first movers, but rather those who can anticipate what mature models will enable and build products that are ready for that reality.

Those watching the models themselves have the timing advantage. Each generation opens up new professional categories and use cases. Success comes from predicting which problems tomorrow's models will solve and preparing products for that moment.

This post was inspired by thoughts from Elad Gil's recent piece - one of the most successful angel investors of our time (Airbnb, Stripe, Notion). His analysis on AI market dynamics is worth reading: https://blog.eladgil.com/p/ai-market-clarity

What sectors do you think are still underexplored in AI? And where do you see the next wave of opportunities emerging?

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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 26 Jul

Everything is underexplored in AI except for integration with the products that MS and Google control themselves and big ticket items.

Any repetitive cognitive task can be automated, as long as it is:

Well defined, and
Small

The more cumbersome a task is, the better the prospects that a good fit can be found.

Do you want to automate airplane parking and docking? Cool. Start with freight.

Do you want to automate pattern recognition on KPIs? Cool, start with another startup.

The sky is the limit.