a16z|Sep 08, 2026 18:51
a16z's Anish Acharya on why consumer AI is where the iPhone was in 2010, and the three reasons the biggest companies in the category haven't been built yet:
"What's held us back is three things. One is that the models have been expensive, so if you want to do a free-to-use product, that hasn't been easy."
"The second is that we've kind of had an interface problem. Chat makes sense if you're the highest agency person in the world, which is Elon and Sam. But for the average consumer, their ideal interface is TikTok. So we need to find something between chat and TikTok."
"And then the technology has been so much more focused on productivity than things like human connection and entertainment."
"All those things are up for grabs. The open weight models mean things are way cheaper... Founders like @ekuyda are thinking really ambitiously about user interfaces, @bchesky from Airbnb started a foundation lab focused on next-gen user interfaces."
"I think all of those problems will get solved, or they're at least in a better position to be solved than they were two years ago."
@illscience w/ @lennysan(a16z)
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