2026 Ai Predictions Insights From Andreessen Horowitz Partners

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Jan 17, 2026, 12:45 PM

2026 ai predictions insights from andreessen horowitz partners

I enjoyed the 2025 roundup pieces from Karpathy, Simon and many others, and they have me thinking about 2026. The AI Apps ecosystem is maturing in some expected ways and some surprising ones. We’ve figured out how to make code cheap, but it hasn’t yet diffused across the enterprise (or world) in the way that’s implied by the lower costs, and I don’t think we’ve realized even... Meanwhile, there are still fundamental tooling problems to solve—like the fact that all our tools are for making, not for thinking. One big change I expect is the nature of tools themselves. All of the tools we use for knowledge work are focused on execution: IDEs for creating code, Figma for creating design, spreadsheets for creating models.

When it comes to tools for exploration – tools that help us think – we don’t really have any modern products outside of how the LLMs themselves have emerged as thinking partners. As coding agents are able to work with increasing accuracy and longer time horizons, the hard problem moves from how do I build it to what do I build. You can imagine a near future PM who sets broad goals for their AI and wakes up every morning to review 2-3 features the model dreamt up, executed on, and A/B tested overnight. However in my experience the models are still not very good at deciding what to build next – the ideas are bland, derivative, and generally lack the spark you see from really good new... So I think the spiritual successors of coding tools, design tools, and productivity tools are very focused on exploration vs execution. Coding tools are already leading the way here; Cursor is the furthest along and I thought Antigravity was interesting in being “agent first” (exploration first) in their product design.

I’ve always noticed a distinction between “power” functions and “service” functions in software companies – power functions (engineering/product/performance marketing) tend to be closer to software, while service functions (legal/finance/HR) tend to be further from... Coding agents have two important implications for the enterprise. The first is that every team + every task (marketing, legal, procurement, finance) should be software first, and all of these leaders are going to have to learn to reach for a software toolbox... Many of these organizations will embrace domain specific products like Harvey, while others yet will use “bare metal” coding agents like Codex or Claude Code. Every team should be a software team. Every December, Andreessen Horowitz 's partners share the problems they believe builders will tackle in the year ahead.

These ideas come from pattern recognition across founders, operators, and real companies, not from abstract forecasts. The 2026 list stands out because the conversation has clearly shifted. AI is moving past experimentation and copilots and into systems that act, coordinate, and own outcomes. Below is a clear, copy-paste–friendly breakdown of the key ideas for 2026, directly attributed to the a16z partners who shared them. Across all these ideas, one pattern is consistent: If you’re building for 2026, this list works as a filter for deciding what’s worth building next.

Venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz has released its predictions for the AI landscape in 2026, with four partners debating the future of major consumer large language models (LLMs) on the firm’s podcast that aired... The discussion centered on industry leaders including ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Claude, Cursor, Perplexity, and Grok. Gemini’s multimedia capabilities could be a game-changer, according to Justine Moore, an investment partner at the firm. She highlighted that Gemini 3’s advanced video and image models might give it a significant competitive advantage over ChatGPT, noting there’s “always nearly infinite demand” for these capabilities among both professional and everyday users. Moore emphasized that viral trends often emerge from new capabilities in best-in-class image and video models, which can drive substantial user adoption and potentially help Gemini overcome ChatGPT’s dominant name recognition. Multimodality emerged as a critical differentiator for 2026.

Moore explained that the ability for AI models to simultaneously process text, images, and audio represents the next frontier. She posed compelling questions about future capabilities: “What happens when you can put a video in and get images out that are related to or the next iteration of the video? Or you can put a video in and a text prompt about what you want to edit, and get the edited video out?” These advances could revolutionize the design world, where combining text and... ChatGPT’s app ecosystem could define its trajectory, according to partner Olivia Moore, who called the success of ChatGPT’s internal app store the “defining question for the next year.” Launch partners included major platforms like... Anish Acharya, another partner, emphasized that the software development kit (SDK) allowing developers to build custom apps for ChatGPT could prove crucial for both consumer and enterprise adoption. The market dynamics suggest a “winner takes all” scenario is emerging.

ChatGPT currently dominates with 800-900 million weekly active users, while Google’s Gemini has reached approximately 35% of that scale on web and 40% on mobile. Other models trail at 8-10% market share. However, ChatGPT Enterprise showed explosive growth with an eightfold increase in weekly messages during 2025, according to OpenAI. The partners noted that mandatory workplace adoption could significantly boost consumer usage, though Gemini is growing desktop users faster than ChatGPT, indicating the competitive landscape remains fluid. In a recent video discussion, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), shared his outlook for 2026—and his message is clear: we are witnessing the most significant technological shift of his lifetime. Unlike previous "AI winters" that promised much and delivered little, this wave is different.

The technology is backed by unprecedented revenue growth and demand that translates into real dollars immediately. Here are the key insights from Andreessen's analysis of where AI is headed. Andreessen doesn't mince words about what we're experiencing: "This new wave of AI companies is growing revenue... at an absolutely unprecedented takeoff rate." [00:00] He argues that AI is potentially bigger than the Internet and comparable to the introduction of electricity or microprocessors.

The critical difference from past AI hype cycles? The economics are real this time.

2026 Ai Predictions Insights From Andreessen Horowitz Partners

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