
18 segments available
As 2025 comes to a close, consumer AI is entering a new phase. A small number of products now dominate everyday use, multimodal models have unlocked entirely new creative workflows, and the big labs have pushed aggressively into consumer experiences. At the same time, it is becoming clearer which ideas actually changed user behavior and which ones did not. In this episode, a16z consumer investors Anish Acharya, Olivia Moore, Justine Moore, and Bryan Kim look back on the biggest product and model shifts of 2025 and ahead to what 2026 may bring. They discuss why consumer AI appears to be trending toward a winner-take-most model, how subtle product design choices can matter more than raw model quality, and why templates, multimodality, and distribution are shaping the next wave of consumer products. Where do startups still have room to win? How will the role of the big labs continue to change? And what will it actually take for consumer AI apps to break out at scale in 2026? Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction & Market Overview 0:35 Who Won Consumer AI in 2025? 1:22 Major Model and Product Launches 2:24 Image and Video Model Innovations 4:05 Product Sensibility and User Experience 6:40 Advances in Image and Video Models 9:11 Under-hyped Products and Productivity Apps 10:21 Prosumer Tools and Power User Workflows 12:56 Gemini vs. ChatGPT: Distribution and Brand 14:04 Product Nuances: Onboarding and Engagement 16:09 Social Features and Group Chat 19:26 Sora, TikTok, and the Status Game 21:02 Challengers: Claude, Perplexity, Grok 23:37 Meta, Grok, and Rapid Model Progress 26:54 Predictions for 2026: Enterprise, Apps, and Multimodality 32:02 Startup Opportunities and App Generation 36:27 Favorite Products and Recommendations 42:19 Building Consumer Products in 2026 Resources: Follow Anish: https://twitter.com/illscience Follow Olivia: https://twitter.com/omooretweets Follow Bryan https://twitter.com/kirbyman01 Follow Justine: https://twitter.com/venturetwins Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures.
"For most the year, less than 10% of chatbt users even visited another one of the big LLM providers. >> When you open Gemini, it has a popup says, "We got nano banana. Would you like to do something wi..."
"take all or at least winner take most. So only 9% of consumers are paying for more than one out of the group of chatbt, Gemini, Claude and Cursor. And for most of the year, less than 10% of ChateBT us..."
"this. So Claude, Grock, Perplexity are all about 8 to 10% of the usage. But especially in the last 3 to 6 months, things are changing very quickly with the launch of new viral models like Nano Banana...."
"this year. Openai, Google, what are you paying attention to? What have you changed your mind on? >> Yeah, those two in particular had a ton of consumer launches like Olivia mentioned. Um, from a model..."
"aesthetic sensibility that a lot of the models don't have if you don't know how to prompt for it. But I would say this year in particular, we made a lot more strides on realism and also on reasoning w..."
"historically accurate photo of this moment in time," you have to actually have the search integration. And that was sort of non-intuitive, but it's actually very useful. >> Totally. Yeah. It's kind of..."
"of new primitives or ideas that feel underhyped but because the execution is a little off. >> I think it's the execution >> the usage is off. Another example that I would give which is similarly like ..."
"general LLM assistant. I use chatbt and claude much more. But I think they really executed on it in a first class way in terms of both the agentic model within the browser, but also perhaps more impor..."
"launching it within Google Docs and Gmail and other things. But I think that most the average person is still just using one AI product and SHABT is like the Kleenex of AI. Like it is the brand that h..."
">> Mhm. >> it's a blank screen. >> It has a popup says we got nano banana. Would you like to do something with it >> and a little pane where you have to type something? >> Yeah. >> I don't I don't kno..."
">> Uh bearish for now. >> Okay. >> Uh and the reason to me is twofold. Uh historically, we we look at sort of it's funny. I I look at products based on what I call inception theory. You go like three ..."
"people to think it's this or that or this other thing. And so that's kind of what drives participation on the app. >> The status game. >> Exactly. The status game. And when it's AI generated content a..."
"more obvious names for challengers. Olivia, what's your take? I love Claude. I talk to Claude all the time. Claude is somewhat replaced ChachiBT for me as my general LLM. I think Claude is opinionated..."
"Meta and Grock as I feel like they both had fascinating years in different ways. >> Yes. >> So, Meta um hired all those researchers. I think their strongest models are actually not consumerf facing mo..."
"traditional enterprise licenses and then working with specific companies to even like train models for them. And I think when we think about the fact that most consumers only use one general LLM produ..."
"are really working. And I think it's because it's not the core competency of these companies anymore to build opinionated standalone consumer UI. Out of all of those, I think the product that's workin..."
"possible when you combine like an agent with image with text is Pamelli. So, this is like the Google Labs product where you put in the URL of your business, and it has an agent go to the website, pull..."
"them. Wobbby is a great example of this. Um and so the hope is 2026 will be a huge year for consumer builders. Um not just like consumers as um like consumers being consumers of a product. >> Yeah. >>..."