AI future of today
FEB 24, 2026a16z
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Structural capital shifts The AI cycle is fundamentally collapsing the traditional boundaries between venture and growth stages as infrastructure requirements demand unprecedented, front-loaded capital.
“The industry-wide gap between perception and reality has never been wider.”
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Inverted value capture Frontier model companies are currently absorbing more capital than the cumulative ecosystem of applications built on top of them, a reversal of historical software trends.
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The perception divergence A massive gap has emerged between the public's understanding of AI progress and the actual unit economics and technical scaling occurring within top-tier labs.
“The industry-wide gap between perception and reality has never been wider.”