Vertical AI Agents Could Be 10X Bigger Than SaaS

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 22, 2024

Duration

42m

Channel

Y Combinator

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

As AI models continue to rapidly improve and compete with one another, a new business model is coming into view - vertical AI agents. In this episode of the Lightcone, the hosts consider what effect vertical AI agents will have on incumbent SaaS companies, what use cases make the most sense, and how there could be 300 billion dollar companies in this category alone. Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 0:00 Coming Up 1:01 Jared is fired up about vertical AI agents 7:25 The parallels between early SaaS and LLM’s 9:09 Why didn’t the big companies go into B2B SaaS? 12:25 How employee counts might change 16:25 The argument for more vertical AI unicorns 21:31 Current examples of companies/uses 35:22 AI voice calling companies 40:04 What is the right vertical for you as a founder? 41:36 Outro

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Harj Taggar

  host

• Diana Hu

  host

• Garry Tan

  host

• Jared Friedman

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Y Combinator, featuring Harj Taggar and Diana Hu, Vertical AI Agents Could Be 10X Bigger Than SaaS explores Vertical AI Agents Poised To Eclipse SaaS And Reshape Workforces The hosts argue that vertical AI agents—AI systems tailored to specific business functions—could produce at least 300 new billion‑dollar companies, potentially becoming 10x larger than today’s SaaS winners because they replace both software and headcount.

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