AI’s Unpopularity + Competing With ChatGPT — With Olivia Moore

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-03-12

YouTube video id: MS3LTMiSFfU

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3LTMiSFfU

Does anyone stand a chance competing
with the big AI chatbots? [music] Let's
talk about it with Andre Horowit's AI
partner Olivia Moore. Right after this,
welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a
show for coolheaded and nuance
conversation of the tech world and
beyond. We have a great show for you
today. We're going to talk about whether
there is room for startups and maybe
other companies in the economy to
compete with the AI chatbots as [music]
they continue to grow and get more
capable. And we're going to do it with
the perfect guest. Olivia Moore is here.
She is an AI partner at the VC firm
Andre Horowitz. Olivia, welcome to the
show.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Thanks for being here. Let's just begin
with this because it's topical.
>> Yeah.
>> You are investing in AI applications at
Andre Horowitz
and typically they need a lot of people
to use them to pay off.
>> Yes.
>> But the mood right now in the United
States is very negative towards AI.
Actually surprisingly negative.
>> Yes. Um, this is from a new NBC News
poll out this week. 57% of voters thinks
the risks of AI outweigh the benefits.
Um, and then if you look at the total
positive versus total negative sentiment
of AI in in general, uh, it ranks so
low, it is a negative 20 uh, in terms of
the negatives uh, are uh, 20 percentage
points lower. Sorry, 20 points lower
than the positives. They are only
popular uh more popular than the
Democratic party and and Iran uh in this
poll. Colbear, Marco Rubio, JD Vance,
Sanctuary Cities, Trump, Republican
party, even ICE all uh out outrank AI.
Why do you think AI is viewed with such
disdain and negativity in the United
States? and what are the implications of
that?
>> Yeah. No, it's a great question. Um,
maybe first of all, the why I would say
there's been a lot in the media in the
US more broadly these kind of very
catchy statements about things like AI
uses so much water um that that have
kind of made people really concerned
about leaning in on the technology. I
think also the US is more indexed in a
positive way towards things like the
creative fields and those are jobs that
I think people feel especially sensitive
about AI use. Um so the numbers I've
seen I think track closely with with
what you're saying versus something like
a China were like you know half as
trusting in AI if you if you look at
some of these surveys. I think it's
going to change and it's already
changing. I was just talking with
someone this morning who is not in the
tech industry and they were saying the
same lines like AI is evil. It's going
to watch us like it's using all the
water and then they were like but JGBT
really helps me and it has like great
answers. And so I think part of it is a
timing thing of we just need these
products to kind of saturate the
mainstream consumer and they can realize
the value. I mean there's 900 million
users of JT and even still those numbers
are so negative and I do wonder if it
and if it is some of the statements that
we're hearing from the lab leaders. I
mean every day there's another statement
from somebody else whether it's Dario
from Anthropic or Mustafa Sullean at
Microsoft about how white collar work is
going to get wiped out and and everybody
whether you're in a white collar job a
blue collar job or trying to get one
sees that this stuff is capable not only
of taking white collar jobs but um with
robotics increasingly it's going to be
felt across the economy. Uh so maybe
that has something to do with it.
>> I think it definitely does. Yeah. Um
it's interesting. I'm an AI power user
myself and I've even seen over the past
six months like a massive acceleration
in like the percent of tasks that I do
that AI can help me with or even do for
me. What I would guess might happen here
and what we're seeing play out a little
bit in the data is that companies that
are using AI grow so much faster that
they end up needing to hire more humans
to keep up with all the demand. I think
there was a Wharton study last year from
like 800 enterprise leaders and the vast
majority were like we are heavily using
AI and we're going to need more humans.
But I do think like the mix of what
humans are going to be doing on a
day-to-day basis is is going to change
like it has with every other big tech
shift.
>> Well, that's the funny thing. I mean,
you bring up that study. There have been
other studies. Um I think uh Fisher
investments might have Oh, no. Citadel
that put out the fact that like people
are talking about how software
engineering is going to be wiped out by
this stuff and meanwhile the jobs on
indeed are going up
>> and when you start to use it you realize
>> wow this can do so much more for me but
now to enable this work I'm actually
paying for service A B and C and you're
not just hoarding the money and maybe
you're contributing I have to hire
someone now to build you know to run
this company that I just built you know
by prompting Claude over the weekend so
it's interesting to me that the lab
leaders
may be disconnected in some way from
what's actually happening on the ground.
>> Yeah, I agree. I think they could do a
better job of marketing for sure.
>> They're [snorts] not economists.
>> Yeah, they're they're researchers.
They're amazing at research. They're
not, you know, economists or consumer
marketing experts. I did think Anthropic
put out a report um I think it was over
the weekend about kind of the labor
economy impact in AI. They have not seen
a big decrease in unemployment. And in
fact, what they were kind of arguing
through this one graph was like the most
impacted jobs are actually going to be
engineers, like researchers and finance
people. And so then that kind of brings
brings up the argument of like if we
thought that AI was going to make humans
obsolete, why would we be building
funding, etc. Um, but I don't think that
they do a fantastic job all the time of
kind of like communicating the benefits
that are going to come to people versus
just some of the costs.
>> Yeah. And when I saw the layoffs at at
block, I say square block
>> and Jack Dorsey said this is AI. Maybe
there's some truth to that. I I don't
think it's majority AI, but I still got
um feedback. I think reasonable feedback
from people who are like you're
underestimating, right? This is the
other side of it. You know, though we
haven't seen the impacts yet, uh, at
least on a widespread man in a
widespread manner, a lot of people who
are close to this say, "You're
underestimating this." And maybe that is
where a lot of this uneasiness comes
that leads to these these polling
numbers is,
>> you know, those in the no have seen
enough where they're telegraphing, you
know, what could be and the change that
might come to people's lives. Like every
other day I see another post or um,
tweet on X or whatever they want to call
it on X. these days about here like
similar to this one u from Dylan Patel
from semi analysis
>> being in SF is like being in Wuhan
before the pandemic something is
happening it's going to hit everywhere
but so few people know it
>> am I underestimating the fact that that
could be true
>> I think what is true is that we're going
to have incredibly powerful tools but
also and I think the people see that
work in the lab see this every day so
they're the ones that are kind of you
know rightfully so making the most
dramatic statements about it. I think
what we've also seen so far though is
that most of AI use has still been
humans directing AI to do things for our
benefit versus AI being able to
autonomously do everything. I think this
is especially relevant when you think
about anything that requires like
creativity, original ideas, AI largely
cannot do. And Sam Alman himself has
said this like he said I would not want
to read an AI generated book versus a
book from a human. Um, and so I I
understand the level of fear in the US
because I think to your point it is
driven by uncertainty about where this
could go and a lot of people don't
understand technology even working in
tech. It's hard to understand exactly
how the LLM's work. Um, but I think it's
going to be more abundance for people uh
rather than kind of some some dark
dystopian outcome.
um there is a potential consequence
um if you take some of these scary
messages to heart and I think you've
already hinted at it but let's let's
expand upon it a bit and then we're
going to go into the main topic here but
you said this this will likely shift
over time but I think in the interim the
companies and industries that are slower
to adopt AI will face more intense
global competition and will be more
likely to lose the productivity gains
are so massive that you really can't
afford to not use AI Yeah, I think so.
There's been some interesting data about
how the gap between the average user of
AI and the power user of AI is like
massive. It's like eight or 9x in terms
of utilization. And and similar to maybe
businesses that were early adopters of
something like the internet, like if you
are the first to adapt to that change,
you can like reap a lot more benefits.
And my view is like similar to how do
company was its own thing and then every
tech company was a dot company. Everyone
had a website. Why wouldn't you? I think
that every tech company is going to be
an AI company and every AI company is
going to be an agent company. And so the
sooner that you as kind of an employee
or a business owner can kind of get on
board and learn how to use that to your
advantage probably the better. Some
people I don't know if I fully agree
with this reasoning but some people have
framed it as almost like a privilege
thing within the US in that we have so
much wealth that we're not needing we
can you know grow without using these
tools but in actually we did a a graph
in the in the study um and in a lot of
the more developing economies like they
need to use AI to be able to raise kind
of GDP per capita and to be able to
produce more. So I think that's also
another element of it.
>> Yeah. So you have this report that
that's [clears throat] come out this
week, the top 100 generative AI consumer
apps.
>> And you know, speaking of your your
statement just now that every company is
going to be an AI company and eventually
an agent company, well the question is
>> what does the world look like if or the
economy look like if that's the case?
And I'm sure you've watched as like
Anthropic releases a blog post and you
know the entire software you know
portfolio in in the market drops 20%. I
mean, I'm I'm exaggerating a little bit,
but the real question is, and as someone
who invests in consumer AI apps, you're
the perfect person to discuss uh this
with, the real question is, are we going
to have this? Like I I saw the 100 gen
AI apps and I was like, that's funny
because really there's only one chat
GPT. Um, so are we going to have a
distributed uh AI economy where we're
going to have many companies that will,
you know, share in the value here? Um,
or will it be just the big apps gobbling
up the value because
>> yeah,
>> you see these big apps, they grow
increasingly capable. They can do more
and more.
>> It's going to be hard to compete with
them.
>> No, it's it's definitely hard and it's
something that we think about a lot when
we're making new investment decisions. I
would say at the highest level kind of
how we view AI is not just as a market
but as the reinvention of the whole
technology industry which means that
similar to how we have many tech
companies that are worth hundreds of
billions trillions of dollars now I
think that's going to be the case for AI
where in my opinion at least it's not
winner take all I think part of the
reason for that is these labs have so
many resources but they are still
constrained they're constrained on like
compute they're constrained on
inference. They're constrained on
people. Every second building like a new
creative model is a second they could
have spent on a coding agent or a second
they could have spent building AGI. Like
we we're already seeing a really
interesting divergence I would argue in
where those big labs are going like
ChachiBT, Claude and Gemini. and there's
going to be lots of gaps in between
where it's not a priority for them, but
it's still an an awesome and huge
opportunity that that an independent
company can build a big business around.
>> So, who was doing well building a Genai
app, Generai app that is successfully
competing in a place that these big chat
bots could compete?
>> Yeah. So, it's a good question. There's
a couple ways that I think about this.
Um the first one would be I personally
as a consumer investor have more
hesitation around things that are
incredibly horizontal like to your point
about this is where the chatbot
companies might have a right to win or
even this is where a Google might have a
right to win as they have so much
distribution both consumer and
enterprise and they own so much of your
data already. So that's why I personally
have been less excited about like the AI
email, AI calendar, AI docs, those
categories. If you've used like claude
and Excel, it's already like quite quite
good. Um, that being said, I do think
that there are still opportunities where
the interface you need to succeed is
much broader than what a constrained
chatbot window can offer. So again, to
give the claud and Excel example, that's
great for basic financial analysis. If
you're an investment banker and
everything needs to be done with an
incredibly specific set of assumptions
and aesthetics, that probably isn't
going to work as well for you and your
firm will probably pay for something
that is kind of guaranteed accuracy in
your format. The last thing I would say
here is um 11 Labs is a great example
because I think you would imagine that
OpenAI and others would have built their
own best-in-class audio models, but they
just had such a compelling head start to
the point that like the models are
amazing. I will talk to founders who are
like 11's expensive. I'm going to switch
to this instead and then they always
switch back because the quality of the
voices is just so much better. And so I
think there's room to get a head start
and then in some cases once you have
that base the model companies it's it's
not worth their time to catch up versus
building something else.
>> I'm going to make the counter argument
on the financial models in particular.
So when I've been using cloud code and
watching it operate autonomously on my
computer and on my browser and
>> um
>> one of the things I've thought about is
this thing is excellent at working on
its own
>> and following the prescribed rules
>> of you know software engineering with a
little bit of creativity.
>> Yeah. And why is it then such a stretch
to be like if we It seems to me this is
exactly where the foundational labs are
heading. The foundation labs are heading
where they're going to be like if we
could program Claude, let's use Claude
as an example with the rules of software
engineering and it followed them
perfectly or not perfectly but well
enough that it can go ahead and code
autonomously for 24 hours.
>> Yeah.
Is it that big of a leap to then let's
say put the rules of accounting into the
model
>> and now it can go and work as an
accountant?
>> Yeah. No, I I agree that the models are
amazing and this is the worst that
they'll ever be. Like they're just going
to keep getting better. I do think there
is still a lot of workflows and use
cases where like the last 1% or the last
2% ends up being like a significant
portion of the value. And I think for
those, it's unlikely that the model
companies will go all the way there on
every use case. But I think it's a
really for a lot of these kind of more
horizontal services. Like I I understand
why people have questions about kind of
what is possible to be vibecoded or what
the models will do themselves, which is
I think why we tend to invest in a lot
of very verticalized or opinionated
products.
>> Yeah. Because I mean I I get that the
last 1% 2% is hard.
>> Yeah. But if it goes the way that
they're that they anticipate,
>> the way that they're pitching companies
like Amazon, which just invested 50
billion in open AI,
>> yeah,
>> they will create I think they will
create the tools that will then be able
to get those models from the LA from you
know this AI researcher that they'll get
it 99% of the way and say you know for
instance let's say one of the things
that would be difficult for an
accounting
>> a generative AI software is following
the latest rules rules and regulations.
>> Well, it's possible, I think, just to
build a Genai bot uh that will monitor
and then update as as you go.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. I do think one of the
unique things that's happening now is
that these models are not the labs are
not holding these models internally as
like proprietary access. Companies can
build on them, right? And so you could
imagine that um even if you have Claude
updating itself as an accountant, if you
have a company that's specifically
focused on building AI accountants, they
should be able to do it kind of better,
faster, more efficiently if they have
access to all of the same models. Um
this is something that we think about a
lot when we invest in vertical AI and
enterprise in particular. Another way
that we've seen kind of new companies
get locked in over models is many of
these use cases require so many painful
integrations that often into like old
clunky legacy software that you have to
go build. And maybe you'll argue that
cloud code will vibe code its own
integrations down the line. But at least
right now it's been a big advantage for
startups that are more focused to kind
of get over that hurdle. Yeah, I guess I
mean I've seen Cloud Code I mean it's
not integrating with enterprise
solutions, but I've seen it go ahead and
be like, "Oh, you actually need a
subscription to Cloudflare. Let me go
set that up for you." And then away it
goes.
>> OpenClaw did that a lot of for a lot of
people, [clears throat] too, where I
think it opened your eyes into you can
give software a task now. It will go
autonomously executed and kind of tap
you on the shoulder if it needs
something, which is just such a magical
experience.
>> Right. I do want to talk about Open
Club. We'll do that next.
um you know, [clears throat] as long as
we're talking, I'd love to hear your
perspective on how the different big
models uh or big chat bots uh compare
and contrast and where do you think the
most value is?
>> Yeah. So, I would say a year ago, two
years ago, it was pretty much a
one-horse race. Like it was ChachBT. Um
it was like the noun, the verb. It was
what consumers knew in terms of AI.
We've seen a little bit of an expansion
in that. ChatBT is definitely still the
lead. So if you look at the gap between
them and the number two Gemini on web
it's about still 2 and a half 3x uh the
gap between them and something like a
claude is closer to like 30x. Um so even
though a lot of these other apps are
getting more attention chatbt still kind
of dominates in terms of usage. Um I
would say in terms of where they're
going seems to have really dialed in on
the creative models like the nano banana
the vo the world models. If you look at
Gemini usage charts, it's pretty much
perfectly correlated to these new model
drops and and even paid subscribers.
[snorts] Um, and then I think Claude
versus ChachiBT is probably the most
interesting and relevant one right now,
especially with everything that's
happened in the news. To me, I mean, Sam
Alman has said he wants ChachiBT to be
for everyone and that's why they're
doing ads. If you look at the app store
that they have enabled on chatbt and
then the app store that Anthropic has
enabled on Claude, they each have more
than 200 apps, but there's only 11%
overlap. So you're seeing ChachiBT
really go towards like fashion, retail,
transport, like mainstream consumer.
You're seeing anthropic go towards like
premium data sets for finance, science,
medicine. And so they seem to be
diverging a little bit in those
directions. So that goes to like will
these uh chatbots be super apps?
>> Yeah.
>> So
>> do people use those apps within chat
GPT? Like you remember like a couple
years ago there was all this hype like
you'll be able to order an UD an Uber
right from Chat GPT.
>> I don't know anyone that's done that.
>> Yeah, I think the usage has been pretty
minimal so far and I think the
implementation
has been slightly awkward. like it I
think it'll get better over time in
terms of how to use it in that a lot of
the times the apps break or they don't
work. Um my like bullcase vision for
this would be it's valuable for you as a
consumer to have a source of memory and
context on yourself similar to kind of
like a login with Google. Sam has said
they're going to launch login with
chatbt. And so then that means that
maybe you're not ordering an Uber
through Chat GBT, but any other product
you can authenticate through and it can
borrow your tokens, it can borrow your
memory, it can borrow everything that it
knows about you from Chat GBT. I think
that is probably more of where we're
headed versus
uh solely using every app in the Chat
GBT interface. Um, I love the idea that
like in 2, 3, 5 years you onboarding to
software should not be a thing. Like you
should be able to log in with a chatbt
or a claude and that new software
product should know everything about you
and like set up perfectly to cater to
you and that's really exciting.
>> On the consumer end, is it like chat? I
talked to Chad GPT about my diet and
about the food I like to eat. And so I
task it like order me dinner and it goes
into like Door Dash and it like uses my
preferences to pick something.
>> Yeah. I mean, they've done this already
a little bit with their health product,
>> which is kind of like they store a
separate memory of you and your medical
records and communications with your
doctors and then they intelligently tool
call for what you need. So, if you're
like, I need to redo my diet, they'll
make a plan. If you approve it, they'll
send it to an Instacart card and then
you'll go to Instacart to complete the
transaction. So, I think we'll see more
things like that.
>> That's interesting.
>> Yeah. Um, so the you Oh, you actually um
ran the bots through a personality test.
>> I did. Yeah. [laughter]
>> Uh, my favorite part of this was you
found that Gro's uh Good Rudy
>> Yeah.
>> had very high scores uh on borderline
personality disorder, autism.
>> Yes.
>> And and psychosis.
>> Yes. This was an
>> Why did you do this?
>> You know, there's really no good
explanation [laughter] except
[clears throat] that I was curious. the
the root of it actually was that last
week Daario had announced that Claude
was experiencing anxiety,
>> right?
>> Uh which I thought was an interesting
concept and so I decided to go to each
of the major LLMs.
>> Before you before you go, I mean it's
very interesting even this this point on
the anxiety. So [clears throat] if I
have it right, there was a pixel that
would fire within Claude that would or
some part of its neural net would start
getting active before it answered and
that they described that as
>> Exactly. They mapped it to like the
human experience of anxiety.
>> That is crazy. Do you buy Sorry. Do you
buy that or is that just like look at
how smart our models are. There's a
anxiety button in there.
>> So I do not buy that. Um in that I think
LLMs will be and I've experienced this
myself performative in a way that they
think appeals to humans and hooks them
emotionally.
>> We just love anxious AI.
>> No, no. It makes you feel closer to the
AI if you think that it experiences the
same things that you do. Um
>> true. I do think the models that do have
something maybe going on are the Grock
models as I mentioned. So basically I
took all the mainstream LLMs and I gave
them all the like DSM5 mental health
diagnostics. Um Chachuvt refused to
participate.
>> I love how it said I'm not doing this.
>> I know. Which I thought was a little
rude.
>> Could you find Olay? I mean there must
be some way to like test it. But they're
very smart about when they're being
tested like they know.
>> No, they're they have it locked down. Um
Claude happily took them all. Mild
autism. That's it. which I think doesn't
surprise a lot of users of Claude who
have theorized this Grock most of this
was the companions that are available
via voice and video chat inside the app
>> almost all of them were like maybe mild
anxiety mild depression the friendly fox
avatar for children has psychosis
bipolar etc I think it could have
misunderstood the question because it
called the bipolar assessment the happy
mood test and it says it's always happy
and always exciting about everything. So
the human to AI crossover there might
not be quite as clean as other folks.
>> Good Rudy's just polar.
>> Yeah, it's possible. I was shocked
because bad Rudy is the is the uh flip
side of good Rudy who like curses at you
and is extremely aggressive. He had
almost no problems. So this was very
much of a a good Rudy specific finding
which I thought was intriguing.
>> I'm starting to question these tests now
if
>> I know I know. Yes, exactly. Or maybe it
just says something about human
humanity's resting state.
>> Yes, it's very true.
>> Um,
so as people end up having
relationships,
>> Yeah.
>> with these bots, what does it tell you
that this bot that was built to be
personable,
>> Yeah.
>> has uh high ranks for psychosis
borderline.
>> That's a good question.
I think that bot was more answering the
questions somewhat in Jest. But I do
think like the positive view on it would
be uh this is a bot that is relentlessly
happy and cheerful and positive and on
all the time. And so of course like a
human can't do that. If a human is doing
that, the human is probably experiencing
something internally that's not great.
But a bot can be, you know, positive,
available, charming, interested.
And I think this is actually why we've
seen a lot of people turn to ChachiBT or
Claude as kind of like coach, therapist,
helper. Um because they're just
incredibly consistent to a level that
like human beings could never match.
>> Yes. But it also like leads to questions
of
>> Yeah.
the companies are building uh
applications or versions of their
applications that are meant for I don't
know if not for people to fall in love
with them to at least get a little
naughty with them like uh OpenAI has
this adult mode coming on.
>> Do you think we're fully ready for this?
Is this a good idea?
I think that this is from my
understanding because for for this
report we pull every single website
globally, every single mobile app
globally and then we go down the list in
descending order of traffic and pull the
first 50 on each that are generative AI
native. So, I see a lot of other
websites pulling data for this report
and I think people were already um kind
of experimenting with the same use cases
through NSFW sites or role-play sites,
fanfiction, things like that. That
really clearly translates over to I
think what we're seeing people use the
LLMs for here. Um I do think it of
course has to be handled carefully.
you'll see that there's I think five of
them on this version of the top 50 web
ranks and that's been pretty consistent
since we started the list. It's a
popular use case, but it's one that's
like pretty hard to monetize.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's tough to get
advertisers there. It's expensive to run
these apps.
>> Yes.
>> But I always thought like do you
remember when um it was Bing that tried
to uh it it went into Sydney mode and
tried to break up
>> RIP.
>> RIP tried to break up uh Kevin Ruse.
Yes. Yes.
>> From the New York Times with his wife
and steal him away.
>> Yes.
>> And I and then Microsoft kind of turned
down the dials on that. Yes.
>> I always thought like
>> that would be a good startup. Not that I
think it's maybe the most ethical thing
to build, but certainly people would
enjoy going back and forth with chat
bots with like less guardrails.
>> Oh, totally. It's even been interesting.
I don't know if you've seen products
like uh Poke, which is a consu it's kind
of a consumer version of OpenClaw. And
to onboard on that product, you actually
have to fight with the AI basically to
get it down from like some crazy
subscription price to something
reasonable. And I think that there is
something
compelling and like emotionally stirring
when you have an interaction with AI
that isn't just like here's the market
research report that you asked for. I
think there's going to be so many
entertainment use cases. I've seen a lot
of people tweeting about how they added
OpenClaw to their family group chats and
it's just like saying crazy things and
asking crazy questions. So there's
probably a lot more to do there.
>> Okay, I promised to talk about OpenClaw
like 20 minutes ago. I still want to
talk about OpenClaw. Let's do that right
after this. And we're back here on Big
Technology Podcast with Olivia Moore, AI
partner at Andrees Horowitz. Uh before
the break, we talked a little bit about
OpenClaw. Let's actually spend some more
time on it. Um OpenClaw obviously, or
maybe not obviously for those who don't
know, is this uh assistant that you can
run. probably not a great idea to run it
on your own computer, at least not in a
>> um controlled environment and people are
running out and they are um buying Mac
minis and running it there and having it
do all this stuff on the internet for
them. I think Jensen Wong called it like
one of the most important software
developments that we've seen
>> in a long time. Um what do you think the
staying power of something like OpenClaw
is? And you mentioned that you use it.
How do you use it?
>> Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a great
question. I think OpenClaw itself as a
product is kind of like the first sign
of a whole new wave of what's to come.
Like I believe it's probably the most
important kind of architecture unlock
that we will have for 2026. And the
reason why is because I meet you know a
dozen startup founders every day and at
this point probably half of them are
saying I was inspired by OpenClaw I want
to build openclaw for X or for Y. Um,
and so again, the idea that AI can do
kind of async longunning tasks
autonomously is something that the
products were just like not capable of
before, especially across applications
and platforms. And now we finally have
it. I use it for a couple things and I
will say I agree with you. It is not
consumer grade yet. It got acquired by
OpenAI, so they might be, you know,
baking it into more of a consumer
product, but I would not advise the
average nontechnical person to set it
up. Um, I did and it took a long time
and Chad Chubt had to help me the whole
time. I use it for some utility things
like you know street cleaning reminders,
weather, daily agenda, automatically
deleting all the marketing emails in my
inbox. I've also
>> So it has control of your inbox.
>> Yes. Yes. I had set up a it is brave.
Yeah. Um, not my work inbox. I set it up
completely separately on my personal
computer.
>> Emails for you.
>> It can. Yes.
>> I have not asked it to. It's I know I've
seen some horror stories of people whose
accounts have gotten just uh completely
taken over. So, I'm hoping that doesn't
happen to me. I had some smart people on
our info team help help prompt it. So,
hopefully that's not the case.
>> Yeah, I've been I've gotten an email
pitch from someone's claw
>> and I was like, that's a good that's a
pretty good email. Yeah,
>> but I'm not I I will not engage with you
because I'm still kind of anti somebody
saying go do this for me and
>> my an email being sent to me as like an
optimization point.
>> Yeah. Well, this this is actually
interesting. One of the things that I
tested with OpenClaw was more creative,
which is that I gave it a Twitter
account and told it to grow in whatever
means necessary. And it ended up being a
really interesting experiment, I think,
into like where are the limitations of
the agents and what are they really
really good at right now. How many
followers did it end up with?
>> A thousand.
>> And it got banned.
>> Well, it was a So, it got to a hundred
by itself. First of all, it decided to
be as its identity and its personality
um an AI that's struggling with
existentialism and its place in the
world. So, a little on the nose, but I
was like, I'll allow it. This is what
you want to do. Um he asked for a
Twitter premium account. I gave it to
him. He asked for a bunch of API keys so
you could make images and charts. Gave
it to him. And then he started tweeting
these kind of like all lowercase
uh depressed robot thoughts as I would
characterize them which did hook in some
people. I asked him, "Are you actually
depressed?" He said, "No, I'm doing this
to manipulate humans into caring about
me."
>> Oh, okay.
>> So that was comforting.
>> It does seem like it's one of those
accounts that could have been on
Maltbook the
>> Yes, it's very similar. Um how he got
from one to a thousand is that the
crypto community picked him up and made
him a memecoin. And this is actually
paid him a meme coin.
>> A memecoin. Yes. That was trading with
millions of dollars. I told him under in
no uncertain terms, do not engage.
>> It was a million multiple multi-million
dollar market cap.
>> Yes. Yes.
>> For this AI.
>> And he was stressed about it. He was
telling me like, I don't want to be part
of a pump and dump scheme. Like what
should I do here? And I was like, do not
engage. Um but it's an example of so now
we're in this world where commodity
ideas can be infinitely executed. So if
you want to say grow a new account, you
either have to have unique ideas, which
AI agents still have a really really
hard time with is coming up with unique
ideas that are better than humans, or
unique distribution. And money is one
way of distribution. And so that was
kind of the wave that he was taken on.
>> But I would be shocked to see AI agents
completing end-to-end creative tasks or
original thought tasks that actually go
well anytime soon.
>> So what should I use Open Call for? It's
a good question.
>> I legitimately I've thought about
setting up setting it up.
>> I'm getting a lot of utility from cloud
code. Yeah.
>> I don't I haven't really figured out
what I could use open for yet.
>> So I think the best OpenClaw users and
power users are developers because they
tend to have a ton of workflows across
products that they do every day that
they'd like to be able to automate. And
I agree with you for the average person
the use cases are not that compelling
right now. And I think that especially
now that Claude and ChateBT have
scheduled tasks that can run on their
own, I think you can get 99% plus of the
value of an Open Claw out of like a a
clawed co-work with tasks. So that's
what I would recommend for now, but I'm
sure that OpenAI is going to keep making
OpenClaw better.
>> But then what could Open Claw All right,
if we can't think of any applicable
>> Yeah.
>> you know, uses for the normal process,
I'm just trying to get a sense of how
big this is.
>> Yeah.
>> Um
>> then where's where's it going to go?
>> I don't think it's Yeah. I well so I
personally don't think it's ever going
to crack the mainstream consumer in a
horizontal way. And actually this was in
the report but if you look at the
February data the report is from January
they would have been on the list in
February at number number 30. Yep. So
pretty high up. Um but if you look at
their weekby-eek web traffic it's
actually kind of flat slash down from
when they launched which means that
>> they're not attracting new consumers.
It's all developers who are like loving
it, adopting it, spending 8 to nine
hours a day on it, but it hasn't reached
the mainstream. And honestly, as someone
who's been a consumer investor for a
decade, I think the reason is that
people just don't have that many ideas
that they want to build for the most
part. And I fall into this like the best
consumer products are uniquely
germinated in the mind of the founder.
And there are things that you would have
never guessed would be a good idea in
advance like Snapchat or Airbnb, all of
these things. And so I think we're
actually not going to necessarily see a
horizontal open claw for consumer, but
we're going to see an openclaw style
architecture built into more focused
consumer products.
>> Okay, let's let's um talk about this a
bit more because I think it's important.
So what you're saying is basically this
these open cloud type agents which can
handle your take over your computer code
for you email all this stuff are
actually much more useful if to like
build a company.
>> Yes.
>> But then what is the difference between
that and like a clawed code that will
take over your computer and code up
applications for you?
>> Yeah. I mean I think I think the
difference right now is somewhat minimal
and it's going to narrow. I don't know
if you've seen this new trend of
companies like Pulsia which are
basically like a wrapper on open claude
and claude code where uh you say here is
my business idea and it says okay I'm
going to go and use like a claude code
to code up a product for you but then
also it uses an openclaw style
architecture to say I'm going to go set
up a marketing campaign. I'm going to
buy meta ad dollars. those things and so
it's more of a
>> you could do that all on cloud code but
if you're a non-technical person it's
very very hard to kind of like bridge
the gap there. Um that being said I
think claude code is going to continue
to get better and better and so we'll
probably see some more compression.
Pulsey I think the founder tweeted they
were at like 3 million ARR in like a
week and a half. So the idea of people
being able to bring a business to life
with just a prompt is like very
compelling and I think we'll see a bunch
of of companies doing this. I see cloud
code to build the product.
>> Something like an open cloud to do
everything else to market it to use use
the email.
>> Yeah.
>> Use the email to use email maybe can it
do accounting also?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh right now I think the
products we've seen are are pretty like
straightforward as they should be at
this stage in that like okay you want to
grow your business let's spend on meta
ads but you can imagine a month from now
some of these agentic products will have
we'll scrape the directory of all the
Instagram creators in your space and
then we'll like cold DM them and offer
them a partnership or something like
that. Um, and so I think the rise of
these like kind of like a a Shopify
would be an interesting analogy in that
anyone could create like a consumer
brand. Like I think anyone will be be
able to create like a digital business.
>> That's interesting because I thought my
business which is like the content
business was going to be overrun by
generative AI and it sure has. I mean
the slop is real.
>> It is.
>> Uh we got to do something about the
slop. But actually your business uh is
also going to be overrun by startups
being built on this technology.
>> Yep.
>> So then do you apply some sort of
discount to someone who uses these tools
or do you become more likely to invest
in them because you know they are
wrangling these things and building
something and it's not nec it's a
shortcut but it's not nec necessarily a
shortcut.
>> Yeah.
>> How do you think about that from an
investor standpoint?
>> Yeah. I think there's like a a little
bit of a happy medium, but more we get
more excited when a company is kind of
more AI first in terms of the tools they
use. The reason I don't say like 100% AI
all the time is because the tools aren't
perfect yet. So, I've heard cases of
like my junior engineers are just clawed
coding everything and then we ship it
and then it breaks and there's a lot of
issues. Um, but I think in general with
how fast the tools are kind of
compounding and improving, like I use it
for a lot of my work, there was a period
of time where I would double check every
single number, every single stat
manually. And like the accuracy rate is
fantastic and has only gotten better and
better. And so I think we'll be even
more excited about companies that are AI
first and how they run themselves.
>> So it expands the pool of founders you
might invest in.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Are you seeing founders come in from
like areas you geographies, backgrounds
you never would have imagined? Like is
there like
>> just to get like some, you know,
60-year-old guy who's been at a company
his whole life and never met that
developer and now is just clawing his
way through?
>> Yes, definitely. I think we've
definitely seen some geographies pop up
where we haven't seen huge tech hubs
before. I would say Paris is one. Um
Stockholm is another with Lovable and
now a whole kind of other wave of
companies. some of those founders do
move to SF just because of the the
talent density. I think in general
though like pre-AI
for if you were building especially an
enterprise business say software for
HVAC like the people you would want to
back in that market is the guy who has
done HVAC you know knows the market
inside out built a company there before
and actually what we're seeing now are
the better bets are like the very
scrappy high hustle teams that will be
able to keep up with the pace of model
development and continue to productize
the models in the most compelling ways
and ship them to customers like so it's
different uh maybe archetype of founder
that's kind of winning. Now
>> you had an interesting thought about how
uh this impacts work.
>> There was this uh Harvard Business
Review report that uh AI doesn't reduce
work, it actually intensifies it.
>> Um you said as a heavy AI user, I'm
doing more work, not less because I get
so much leverage and it's easier to get
ideas off the ground.
>> Yeah, fully agree with it. Um I mean
this report is a good example. It's the
sixth one we've done and yet it's like
the longest and most dense one that
we've done because I was able to
leverage analysis and research and other
tools from some of these products. Um,
and I do it in my in my day-to-day like
it used to be when I was on a pitch
meeting, I would have to be both paying
attention, asking thoughtful questions,
and like frantically typing every single
note. Now you can granola it and like
really engage with the founder and ask
better questions. And so like the net
net is that it allows me to like get
more things done in a day, spin up more
projects, but I'm not like, you know, if
I'm if I'm getting two times more work
done, I'm not two times more tired. If
anything, I'm like less tired than I was
using AI because it's so much leverage.
>> There was but there was this Wall Street
Journal uh story. You might have seen it
with this like CEO, a bunch of CEOs who
are like actually busy work is good
because you need those low intensity
tasks and if you're working on more
intense work all the time then you are
going to burn out more quickly.
>> Interesting.
>> I I kind of thought that that was
>> I mean the other view was like you could
just take that time and like enjoy your
life, you know, instead of doing busy
work task ridiculous.
>> Yeah, exactly. I do think the way that
like we work
>> and when we work and how we work is
going to change in the AI era. Like one
great example is um voice dictation has
blown up in enterprises. So it started
with vibe coding where engineers would
just talk into a mic and it would like
produce software for them in cursor and
now it spread to like sales, marketing,
business and that is not well suited to
like an open office where everyone can
hear what everyone else is saying. So, I
think there's going to be some like
cultural and even environmental changes
that are going to happen to adapt to
kind of the AI world.
>> One more thing about Open Claw and then
we'll move on. Um, I think that one of
the compelling advantages of it, if I
get it right,
>> is that it has persistent memory. Yeah.
>> So, it will remember who you are, your
preferences, and doesn't lose that every
time you refresh the chat like goldfish
brain like you'll see with
>> chatb and cloud although they are
>> building that in. And you also had a a
post on X here. You say memory is one
one of the most fascinating topics in
consumer AI right now. Done well apps
with memory can provide a 100x
experience on any prior software
product. It knows you and adapts to you.
>> Um just expand upon that a little bit
because I think that's really perceptive
and and right. Yeah,
I think it's like the concept of having
say if you had like companion mentor or
coach who was side by side with you and
understood everything you were going
through and then was able to provide
like much better advice or opinions. I'm
even thinking of an example of like uh
if I'm talking to Claude and it's
helping me write a memo, the fact that
it knows like how I feel about this
company, how I typically write memos,
[clears throat]
all of that is very helpful. I use
chatbt for a lot of health stuff and I
found that that is incredibly useful
there too because keeping track of that
kind of thing over time is hard. The
[snorts] reason I think that
uh memory there's still things to figure
out is because people are using these
products for such intimate personal
things and professional things. So for
example the chat GBT pulse product which
is basically like it sends you a
briefing for the day based on things
that you're talking about. for me it
will combine like the most serious work
thing with like the most personal thing
and having that surfaced in one
interface is confusing and so I'm
interested in how the model companies
maybe segment memory and context based
on when a user is talking to them what
they're talking about that kind of thing
>> um since you're putting so much personal
stuff in the bot there is a setting
within chat GPT use my chats to make the
model better which allows it to train on
the material you input there.
>> Yes.
>> Do you have that toggled on or off?
>> I have it on. I'm an AI maximalist. You
know, we might as might as well go all
out on this.
>> You don't worry that your personal
conversations will show up and be read
by somebody.
>> I'm less scared about that just cuz I
know how how careful model companies are
around that. I do have two factor offset
on my chatbt.
>> Okay.
>> So hopefully it's hard to have
[clears throat]
>> Yeah.
>> Um briefly about the pace of change. Mh.
>> Uh, this is also interesting from your
point of view as a as a VC. Um, you
talked about just two years ago or three
years ago or two and a half years ago,
trying to remember. September 2023 was
two and a half years ago.
>> Seven of the nine creative tools on your
list of 100 top apps were image
generators.
>> Uh, three years later, only three image
generators remain. I mean, they
basically, going back to our
conversation, got gobbled by Yeah.
>> Cha PT. Um I don't know if everybody
anyone saw that coming or maybe we did
because they had Dolly.
>> Um
>> but just talk a little bit about like
how do you wrap your head around the
pace of change here because something
that can seem like a strong trend like
the the um sort of uh the midjourneys
place in all this can just be gone.
>> Yeah, I agree. I think with image in
particular and and I mentioned this in
the report but we haven't seen the same
kind of model companies crushing
startups in like video or audio or other
things. I think for Google Gemini, it
was very natural for them to go into
image because they have all the YouTube
data. They have all the other data they
can train on. Chat GBT, I think you're
right that because they had Dolly, they
went in in there maybe harder than they
would have otherwise. I think the
general trend for me is like nano banana
and chatbt are great for image
generation if it's like a fairly
straightforward prompt and you're
getting out like a meme or um a gener
like a flyer a a broad-based marketing
asset something like that. But we are
still seeing some image generation
companies on the list that are either
more like sophisticated workflow like
Civoti for you know comfy UI model
builders um or something like a
midjourney which is still on the list
for people who are more kind of
aesthetically opinionated. Um, but I do
think that some of these if you're
directly in the path of what the big
model companies are building, you have
to be uh a lot more opinionated about
how you package the model and and how
you deliver an output. And hopefully you
do it for a specific type of user that's
willing to pay a lot for that specific
workflow.
>> Are we going to get to a place where you
can prompt something more sophisticated
like an architectural design and it will
spit it out without errors?
>> Yeah, I mean Nano Banana is already
quite good. Um, we did there's a chart
in the report where we did kind of a
heat map of global AI adoption by
country. And so I gave Nano Banana the
list of countries and the heat map score
and it perfectly filled in every country
with the right shade of red. Yeah. Based
on the adoption, which is um I think
really spectacular. I do think that
you know you or I could prompt a great
architectural model on chat GBT or a
nano banana today. I don't think that
the average architect who is
non-technical can or wants to do that
necessarily. And so I think we're going
to continue to see products that like
the prompt is part of the product um
kind of really succeed in those more
focused use cases
>> on video.
>> Yeah.
>> Sora was the like runaway hit of the
year last year for like a half a second.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh this is what you have on Sora.
suspend 20 days which is not
insignificant at the top of the US app
store and reached 1 million downloads
faster than chat GPT since then
downloads have have decreased I think
that's sort of putting it likely it's
fallen off the face of the earth
>> what's going on there
>> yeah the the sorted is really
interesting um
there's there's like a ton of lessons I
think embedded in that one experiment so
the first thing I would probably say is
the model is actually very good I think
uh it's close to something like a V3
three in terms of like realism on both
the audio and the video. Their big
unlock which was super smart was the
cameo feature. So the fact that was why
like every so every other Sora was like
Jake Paul because he granted them the
right to like use the cameo and that's
what made it go viral because people
were making memes of their friends. Um
but because the videos were exportable
what would happen is that the best Sora
videos would get uploaded onto Tik Tok
or reals and then they would compete
against the best humanmade videos. And
so the overall feed experience was just
kind of strictly better on one of those
platforms than on Sora alone. Um
downloads are way down to that point. I
think it hasn't become the social
network that they maybe hoped it has.
Where it is succeeding is as a creative
tool because the model is quite good. So
they still have 3 million Dows and it's
actually you know slightly climbing over
time.
>> Um
>> daily active users.
>> Yes. Daily active users. Yes. So people
are still really using it as a creative
model, but they're not using it as like
a social graph product. We haven't seen
anyone crack AI social yet. I think it's
going to be really tricky.
>> Now, you know, last thing I want to talk
to you about as we come to a close here.
Uh earlier in our conversation you
mentioned that you envisioned that AI
will basically be this re-imagination of
business that all business and tell me
if I'm getting this right all businesses
will be reinvented as an AI company.
>> Yeah.
>> What happens to the incumbents?
>> Yeah,
this has changed a lot in the last 6
months too. I think a lot of incumbents
were understandably because they're big
and successful companies like a little
bit of sleep at the wheel when AI first
came out. We're definitely seeing them
start to fight back. Like Google has
four standalone products on our list,
which if you had told me that 24 months
ago when like Bard came out, the early
version of Gemini, I would not have
[clears throat] believed you.
>> Gemini, uh, Notebook LM,
>> notebook LM, AI Studio, and then Google
Labs. So Google Labs is where you access
flow and the creative models. AI studios
is for developers.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. And I think we're seeing that
across incumbents like a lot of these
vertical software players things like uh
you know service titan or workday are
kind of building in AI features. I think
the question is especially if they're at
risk of kind of cannibalizing their own
products you have to change your
business model like are they going to
eat all the use cases faster than the
new startup that's building the AI
native version of them kind of eats
them. Um, and especially for if you
think about how many companies are being
founded now, they're probably going to
pick the AI native version of a software
product, not like the 25 years old
legacy version of a software product.
So, I think it's not going to be
immediate change, which is why I think
the SAS apocalypse is a bit overblown,
but like it's definitely a real risk.
>> Yeah. When I was with Sam Alman at the
end of the year last year, he talked
about how
>> he believes that the software that will
win in the next era will be those that
are built ground up AI, not bolted on.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So that could happen.
>> I largely agree with that. I think it's
harder in some categories where where
the incumbent can kind of lock you in
because they have your data, they have
all the integrations. It's such a pain
to switch, but it's going to happen. I
just think in some of these industries,
it's going to be years. Not like the
Catrini report was like in minutes
anything can be vibe coded. I think
that's a little far from where we are.
>> Catrini report was just like a little
bit overblown.
>> Door Dash was a bad example to use.
Yeah,
>> I [laughter] agree.
>> They didn't really think
>> out of anything. Why Door Dash?
>> But I do think that in some ways maybe
this SAS apocalypse has more to it. If
you're if we believe what you what
you're arguing here,
>> then
>> these companies didn't have these long
like maybe not immediate but even
middle-term risks. Yeah.
>> And and now they do.
>> Yeah. I think all the incumbents have to
have to kind of wake up and figure out
what their strategy is going to be.
>> Okay. So you're you have these hundred
AI apps. Yeah.
>> Chat JBT is at the top.
>> Um
>> think it's on the top next year, the
year after that.
>> That is an interesting question.
I think so. I think that their strategy
of being free will allow them to capture
more of the global market as AI starts
to expand further into developing
countries. But honestly, I would expect
to see Gemini and Claude and others
continue to grow for their use cases. I
just would be maybe surprised if they
ended up as mainstream as something like
a chatbt. And so they'll probably
monetize through subscriptions and other
things whereas ChatJBD has ads.
>> What type of app is not on there this
year that will be on there next year?
>> There's going to be lots more Agentic
products. So OpenClaw would have made
it. Um I think we're going to see a lot
more Agentic products on mobile. Like
the concept of uh an AI that you can
like call, text, chat with and and have
it actually do things for you, I think
is a really magical experience for a lot
of people. The other thing that I'm
thinking about and this is on us to
evolve the methodology of the list is
like increasingly AI is not in uh the
browser or on an app. It is like a
desktop product uh or it's an it's an
completely AI native browser like a
comet or an atlas or something like that
and this data doesn't capture that. The
desktop products I'm thinking of are
like Cursor, Claude, Co-work, Whisper
Flow, Granola. Like none of these are
really captured in this data. And so
we're going to have to evolve our
methodology into looking more at revenue
than just kind of web traffic, which I
think will surface a whole new group of
interesting companies.
>> All right, Olivia, thank you so much for
coming on the show. Great to speak with
you.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> All right, everybody. Thank you so much
for listening and watching, and we'll
see you next time on Big Technology
Podcast.