Where are startup dollars going? A16z just released a new report tracking the top 50 AI-native apps by actual startup spend, based on data from 200,000+ customers of Mercury, a fintech providing banking services.
The takeaway is that “not only is AI augmenting employees in specific roles (‘AI for patent lawyers’), it’s turning specific roles into broadly deployed skills across a company (everyone can be a creative now!)”
A few themes stood out:
- 60% of the top spenders are horizontal tools. These include OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity — no surprise there — but also workspaces like Notion, notetakers, creative tools, and vibe coding platforms. What’s most interesting here is there doesn’t yet seem to be a “winner takes all” dynamic emerging, and that “creative” and “coding” have been popularized across roles.
- Verticals are coming up fast, particularly in customer service, sales, and recruiting. Sometimes, they augment teams; sometimes, they replace them entirely. New startups might opt to “hire AI” in lieu of lengthy contracts with lawyers and accountants.
- Vibe coding has enterprise chops. Platforms like Replit, Cursor, Lovable, and Emergent aren’t just side projects anymore — they’re infrastructure. Adoption is growing among enterprises for tools capable of launching fully functional agents (e.g., Replit) and among consumers for tools with friendly UI (e.g., Lovable).
- Many products that started as consumer apps are getting pulled into orgs, in part due to how powerful they are and also due to the scramble to boost employee efficiency. Bottoms-up adoption is alive and well in the AI age.
Today, we dive into how venture capital, one industry that’s long placed its bets on AI, is adopting the technology in its own workflows.
How is your organization adopting AI? Send us a note at [email protected] to be considered for a Q&A.
—The Editors
