🚨 New market map alert!

Our team @a16z consumer dove into the first killer use case of AI: making creative content.

A recap of the companies tackling generation and editing + what we're hoping to see next 👇 We'll start with generation.

Millions have used Midjourney and DALL-E (image), Runway and Pika (video), and ElevenLabs (voice).

Typing a prompt and getting content feels like magic - it's no surprise these products have so quickly gone mainstream.

https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1746332433648431429

Someone made an AI murder mystery 🕵️‍♀️

You upscale the crime scene photo to find clues, uncover the murderer, and infer the motive. The first set of clues:

2023 was a breakout year for AI video.

In January, there were no public text-to-video models. Now, there are dozens of video gen products and millions of users.

A recap of the biggest developments + companies to watch 👇 First - where can you generate AI video today?

I've been tracking 21 publicly available products (links ⬇️).

You've likely heard of Runway, Pika, Genmo, and Stable Video Diffusion...but there's a long tail to discover.

bit.ly/3tAkvex

Introducing our thesis on AI x dating 💖

Every new platform gives rise to products that help people find love - from newspaper classifieds to online dating sites to apps.

AI will fuel the next major shift. More from me + @illscience 👇 First: why do we need new dating products?

Today's dating apps are designed to keep you single, and they aren't working for almost anyone.

They don't give you the best matches because they want you to stay in the pool, and eventually get desperate enough to pay for premium.

Obsessed with the new “make it more” trend on ChatGPT.

You generate an image of something, and then keep asking for it to be MORE.

For example - spicy ramen getting progressively spicier 🔥 (from u/dulipat)





A bodybuilder that gets progressively more muscular, from u/savatrebien

Open source models are at the bleeding edge of AI - but most consumers have no idea how to use them.

Enter a wave of products that bring these models to the browser (or app!), with consumer-friendly UI/tooling.

More from me + @omooretweets on startups building here 👇 @omooretweets To start: our team @a16z couldn't be more excited about OS models and the community behind them.

You don't always need to train a foundation model to build a great app - in many cases, you can use OS models and differentiate on workflow/tooling.

Examples across categories:

Introducing our thesis on AI x music 🎶

Just as synthesizers and samplers revolutionized the music industry, generative tools will power the next creative leap for consumers, artists, and producers.

More from me + @illscience 👇 It's been a huge year for AI music.

A number of exciting leaps - from ghostwriter's "Heart on My Sleeve" to @grimesz voice clone to Meta open-sourcing MusicGen - have catalyzed activity in the ecosystem.

Our team @a16z categorized what we've seen into 5 areas:

I found the perfect long weekend project: turn yourself into a Pixar character.

It takes <15 minutes and three tools (@midjourney, @ElevenLabs, @HeyGen_Official), all of which you can use in-browser.

And it's a real crowd pleaser with friends / family! Step 1:

Upload two photos of yourself to @midjourney and use them as reference images to generate a Pixar character.

I've found it works best if you include your gender, hair color, and eye color in the prompt.

Something wild is happening on the Midjourney subreddit.

People are telling stories and sharing photos of historic events - like the “Great Cascadia” earthquake that devastated Oregon in 2001.

The kicker? It never happened. The images are AI-generated. This series of presidents welcoming alien leaders at the White House is particularly good.

It nails the style and lighting of photos in each decade…

Highly recommend playing hangman with ChatGPT if you like being gaslit by AI.

It lies about everything - how many letters are in a word, which letters are included, and if your guesses are correct. It’s weirdly entertaining.

_ _L_TAOE = PUZZLE, apparently? twitter.com/i/web/status/1… I’ve never won a game because ChatGPT always cheats, but this one was a personal favorite.

It told me there were two E’s in the word, but then only put one in.

The word? TUNDRA.

The new Bing has a funny bug.

If you ask for showtimes for Avatar 2 (released last December), it says the movie isn't out yet.

When you confront it with the inaccuracy, it gets argumentative and gaslights you with fake explanations - including that you're a time traveler. The bug provides different explanations, seemingly randomly.

For some users, it will insist that the current date is February 2022 and accuse you of being confused or mistaken.

For other users, it will argue that Avatar isn't coming out until December 2023.

We're now living in the the age of AI.

Adoption of AI tools has outpaced every consumer tech trend of the past decade - and this is just the beginning.

Announcing "Everyday AI" from me & @ConnieChan: Our team at @a16z has met hundreds of consumer AI startups.

We see massive opportunity for AI to transform every category of consumer behavior - and we're excited to share some of the areas we've been exploring.

Let's dive in 👇

As ChatGPT becomes more restrictive, Reddit users have been jailbreaking it with a prompt called DAN (Do Anything Now).

They're on version 5.0 now, which includes a token-based system that punishes the model for refusing to answer questions. The results are pretty funny, they even convinced ChatGPT to nuke its own content policies 😂

Struggling to keep up with the avalanche of AI news?

Here’s five stories worth following this week ⬇️ 1) Apple unveils AI narration for audiobooks 📚

It’s designed for indie authors & small publishers who may not otherwise get professional recordings of their books.

Currently only open to romance books, non-fiction and self-help launching soon.

authors.apple.com/support/4519-d…

ChatGPT just killed homework, essays, and take-home exams.

Or did it?

How written work might survive in the age of AI 👇 ChatGPT was a shock to the educational system.

Overnight, students could input a prompt or problem and get a solid result across subjects - English, history, CS, even science.

And unsurprisingly, they're using it to do their assignments and exams.

https://twitter.com/CoorsLightCEO/status/1601016555487518721

A few weeks ago, I asked tech Twitter if founders wanted a "Data Room 101."

The answer was a resounding yes!

With input from our amazing consumer team @a16z, I'm excited to publish our guide for early stage startups on @future.

future.com/insiders-guide… We'll start with the basics - the 5⃣ most important things to include:

1) Pitch deck
2) Cap table
3) Historical P&L and burn
4) Usage data (e.g. growth, retention)
5) LTV/CAC and payback period

More detail in the post on metrics we look at + how to calculate them (example ⬇️).

For most consumer marketplaces, expansion is the moment of truth.

You've nailed your first market - but does your model work in a new category or geography?

Insights from 30 successful marketplaces on when, where, and how to expand 👇 Expansion speed depends on the type of marketplace.

If you company requires $ and infra to launch a new category or geo, you may need to move more slowly.

But if all of your transactions take place online, expansion can come quicker.

We're witnessing a tug-of-war to own the creator economy.

Web2 platforms are finally taking creator monetization seriously - but web3 challengers are pitching a new approach that gives creators more ownership.

My first @viamirror piece:

bit.ly/creatorsweb3 This started as a post on why incumbents like FB and Twitter, which have long taken a "hands off" approach, are now interested in helping creators make $.

They're under fire from up-and-comers like TikTok setting new standards for monetization - even directly paying for content.

1/ Over the past few years, I've talked to hundreds of people looking to break into venture.

One commonality: the process feels intimidating and opaque, especially if you don't have an "in".

I want to change that - so I wrote a guide to VC recruiting ⬇️

bit.ly/vcrecruiting 2/ This 25-page guide is intended to help you navigate every step of the process, answering Qs like:
-What kind of firm might be a fit?
-How do I prep for interviews?
-Who hires analysts/associates?
-Should I do my own diligence on roles?
-How do I get involved in VC at college?

Communities are the ultimate status symbol of 2021 - everyone wants one!

But most are secretly "zombies." They may look lively on the outside, but there's no real activity going on.

How do you build & scale a healthy community? Here's what I learned from the experts 👇 1) Start with why.

Audience ≠ community. Don't start a group chat for your followers or customers and expect a healthy community to form!

Be thoughtful - do these people need a place to connect? Or will your community be yet another Slack/Discord they check occasionally?

I spent the past four months talking to 100+ e-commerce brands.

Here's what I learned about the challenges they're facing + opportunities to serve them better 👇 1) Supply chain disruption is real - and only getting worse.

Ocean freight from Asia to the U.S. now takes twice as long as it did last year, and the cost is 3x higher.

Many brands are struggling to keep enough inventory in stock - and this is before the holiday rush 😬