-
The a16z consumer team tapped a grab bag of fellow early-adopters and AI enthusiasts to share their favorite products from a weird and wonderful year.
-
I’ve been using ChatGPT like a daily journal to translate my innermost thoughts and feelings into a readily understandable format. I've been blown away by the results.
-
We crunched the data to find out: Which gen AI apps are people actually using? And which are they returning to, versus dabbling and dropping?
-
Thousands of new AI-native companies are vying for attention. We crunched the data to find out: Which generative AI products are people actually using?
-
We predict an Era of Abundance — lives will be enriched through new channels for creativity, along with new paths to self discovery and belonging.
-
Chatbots have been around for decades, but this time is different. Today’s bots are making inroads into our social lives.
-
In a world of retweets, upvotes, and right swipes, studies show that many of us still feel lonely. Thanks to generative AI, we potentially have a new solution: companion chatbots.
-
Field Notes is a video podcast series on consumer tech by a16z. Connie Chan talks to former Vogue publisher Susan Plagemann of WME Fashion about editorial and social strategy.
-
Field Notes is a new video podcast series on consumer tech. Host Connie Chan and Poshmark cofounder Tracy Sun talk live-shopping, resale, and AI.
-
When a new social app starts to "work," it feels like magic, but often looks like a black box.
-
We’ve entered the age of generative AI. When new technology captures consumer attention so quickly, it begs the question: Is there real value here?
-
There's much more to generative AI than heroic avatars and tongue-in-cheek art. The potential applications are widespread, from drug discovery and therapy to writing, game development, education, ecommerce, and more. Las...
-
It’s no secret today’s young people prefer searching for recommendations on video apps over text-based search engines. Even the executives at Google know this. SVP Prabhakar Raghavan recently said that according to the c...
-
We worked hard this year to help tease apart what was hype/ what was real when it came to the buzz and noise around tech trends in the news this year (!) on our podcast show “16 Minutes.” To do so, we went beyond the hea...
-
From gaming to edtech, marketplaces to social+, these were the most-read consumer tech posts of the year.
-
An innovative new wave of social networks has arrived—from audio-first apps to social gaming to the countless consumer apps built with social in their DNA.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
There’s one rule of thumb that’s proven true over and over again: the best version of every consumer product is the one that’s intrinsically social.
-
As the shelter-in-place restrictions have tethered many people to their homes, livestreaming—broadcasting user-created video in real time—has skyrocketed. Platforms like Twitch, Caffeine, YouTube Live, and Facebook have...
-
This post, part 1 of 2, explains how platforms can help influencers monetize through digital goods and ecommerce. Part 2 will focus on platform memberships sold directly to end users.
-
In the future, we’re all going to be shopping on video apps like TikTok. Whether you’re buying instant noodles or high-end sweaters, it has become increasingly clear that short video clips are the future of ecommerce. Th...
-
One sunny afternoon this April, a Chinese teenager nicknamed Gallen was backpacking through Bali, hunting for things to do. But he didn't turn to TripAdvisor for crowd-sourced suggestions (too time consuming) or scroll t...
-
From emoji and selfies-as-stickers to filters and the “Instagrammification of everything”, there’s a new era of social self-expression happening.
-
Besides invisible messages, bigger and predictive emoji, full-screen effects, and movie/TV GIFs, Apple recently announced that stickers, too, are finally coming to its most popular app, iMessage. It’s no surprise that me...
-
Somewhere along the way Marc Andreessen went from being the pmarca who blogs to the @pmarca who tweets. Or rather, who tweetstorms.
-
Ahh, the Tweetstorm™. It seems like 2014 was the year the storm really hit Twitter, and @pmarca had a hand in popularizing that ... and let us assure you, it was his hand: no PR staff, ghostwriters, robots, or animals we...
-
1/Lots of Mirth over "Yo" today (http://t.co/vYHSgl9OOh) but actually there's a fascinating aspect lots of people are missing...
-
1/Proposed: Unless you're with your kids, what's on screen in your hand = likely more interesting & important than what's around you.
-
I recently joined App.net's board of directors and I'm really excited about Dalton Caldwell's grassroots campaign to build an ad- and influence-free social network. I have contributed to Dalton's quest and encourage ever...
-
Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Meetro and many other promising young startups have all ended up as casualties on the Hamburger Hill called social, mobile, local. With the emergence of a critical mass of GPS enabled smartphon...
Companionship & Social
AI gives computers a personality. The days of rules-based chatbots are over — today’s bots can engage in free-flowing conversation about any topic that interests you. AI will bring more fun to our lives — enhancing our interactions with friends and helping us meet new people.
Featured Companionship & Social Content
Chatbots have been around for decades, but this time is different. Today’s bots are making inroads into our social lives.
In a world of retweets, upvotes, and right swipes, studies show that many of us still feel lonely. Thanks to generative AI, we potentially have a new solution: companion chatbots.
Now is the time to reinvent the phone call. Thanks to gen AI, humans will spend time on the phone only when a call has value to them.
Arts & Crafts
a16z’s Consumer team spends a lot of time testing (and playing with) the latest AI-native tools. Here you’ll find some of their favorite recent demos, trends, and tutorials.
@venturetwins
Nov 07
🚨 New @a16z investment thesis: AI x parenting
Raising kids is one of our most challenging and important jobs.
Every parent needs support sometimes – but many can’t access it because it’s too inexpensive or inaccessible.
AI changes this. What we’re seeing 👇
@venturetwins
Nov 07
@venturetwins
Oct 30
My trip down the rabbit hole in mixed reality…
It’s actually incredibly hard to make – and highlights an interesting challenge in AI image generation.
@venturetwins
Oct 30
@omooretweets
Sep 28
I uploaded 200 pages of raw court documents to NotebookLM.
It created a true crime podcast that is better than 90% of what’s out there now…
And ends with the hosts debating the ethics of the genre 🤯
@omooretweets
Sep 28
@omooretweets
Sep 15
On this week’s @a16z podcast, @venturetwins and I reviewed the new AI features coming in iOS 18
Including the fact that you can now FINALLY record and transcribe calls
Plus extra smart photo search, what we hope to see from Siri, and more
@omooretweets
Sep 15
@venturetwins
Sep 15
Spent the last day playing around with @runwayml‘s new video-to-video tool It’s pretty cool on it’s own and in combination with other tools.
The first clip here is @ViggleAI, the second is @getcartwheel, and the last two are my camera roll.
@venturetwins
Sep 15
@venturetwins
Sep 08
Drag to move a face
Using the new @reshotAI product from @alexcarliera.
@venturetwins
Sep 08
@omooretweets
Aug 26
Excited to announce our investment in @ViggleAI…
And my own accomplishment of becoming an Olympic pole vaulter (Raygun template next, please 🙏)
@omooretweets
Aug 26
@venturetwins
Aug 17
We’ve officially crossed the chasm on AI photos.
These would easily fool my friends & family members.
Generated in minutes on @replicate’s LoRA trainer for Flux (@bfl_ml).
@venturetwins
Aug 17
@venturetwins
Jul 13
Orange cat goes on vacation 🐈
(images from @ideogram_ai, animated with @Kling_ai)
@venturetwins
Jul 13
@venturetwins
Jul 11
Stumbled upon a crazy new app.
You upload 10-15 photos of yourself so it learns what you look like.
Then you can “retake” any photo – change your expression, fix closed eyes, tilt your head differently.
It produces a bunch of variations that all look like you!
@venturetwins
Jul 11
@omooretweets
Jul 06
Another big step in TikTok’s quest to replace Google for Gen Z…
The launch of gen AI-powered search highlights, that summarize (in text) key info across videos 👇
I can easily see these linking to products, reservations, etc. down the line
@omooretweets
Jul 06
@omooretweets
Jul 04
I used GPT-4o as a free, real time audio tour guide around London 🇬🇧
…and it was amazing!
Here’s how it works 👇
@omooretweets
Jul 04
@venturetwins
Jun 04
Made a Pixar intro clip for my life 🎬
Kinda looks like the weird horse girl in middle school – so I know it’s accurate!
Photo from @Scenario_gg ➡️ video from @pika_labs‘s new image-to-vid model ➡️ music from @udiomusic
@venturetwins
Jun 04
@venturetwins
Jun 02
I’ve always wanted AI that can read your tweets and figure out what’s wrong with you.
@venturetwins
Jun 02
@venturetwins
Jun 01
Making my own cartoons on a Saturday morning 📽️
This is from ToonCrafter on @huggingface Spaces.
Used @fofrAI‘s character consistency model for the input images, and then upscaled the video on @krea_ai.
A few learnings 👇
@venturetwins
Jun 01
@omooretweets
May 29
🚨 New @a16z investment thesis!
It’s time for AI to reinvent the phone call – enter conversational voice agents 📱
What we’re excited to invest in + market maps (from me and @illscience) 👇
@omooretweets
May 29
@venturetwins
May 15
Why fear AI gfs if you can become one?
New image editor Anifusion makes it easy to turn yourself into a waifu from just one photo!
(on a serious note, this IP Adapter + pose control in the browser is so cool – 👏 to @EsotericCofe)
@venturetwins
May 15
@omooretweets
May 09
This is like one of those crazy “watch my kid grow up” YouTube videos
…but entirely generated with AI in 30 seconds
(cc @krea_ai new video product)
@omooretweets
May 09
@venturetwins
Apr 17
There’s been an explosion of “looksmaxxing” apps that claim to grade your attractiveness using AI.
I tried five of them on photos of myself and Margot Robbie to determine if they are consistent and accurate.
The results were surprising. My thoughts 👇
@venturetwins
Apr 17
@omooretweets
Apr 11
I love to see AI products adding features like remix, comments, follower graphs, etc.
This feels like the closest thing yet to “AI-native social apps” – it creates the same clout and status-building incentives, but around prompts / ideas!
Some examples 👇
@omooretweets
Apr 11
@omooretweets
Mar 24
“Off label” use cases of ChatGPT are blowing up:
– Therapist
– Language tutor
– Career coach
– Research partner
This is a signal of consumer demand…and it’s time for startups to strike👇
@omooretweets
Mar 24
@omooretweets
Mar 02
Fun weekend project – use AI to generate a comic of you, your kids, or your friends!
And yes, this includes custom (and consistent) characters 🪄
How I did it using @dashstudioai ⬇️
@omooretweets
Mar 02
@venturetwins
Feb 22
🚨 New market map!
AI gives computers a personality – unlocking countless use cases across friendship, coaching, mentorship…and even romance.
What excites our team @a16z about AI companionship 👇
@venturetwins
Feb 22
@kirbyman01
Feb 14
In honor of Valentine’s Day, @a16z consumer is dropping a market map on AI x social 💗
We don’t think tech has to make us feel more alone.
In fact, it can help spark and foster new relationships, and help users build existing ones.
What we’re excited about 👇
@kirbyman01
Feb 14
@omooretweets
Jan 14
Personalized LoRAs are going to massively shake up the influencer game.
Cost/time of making cool content should go way down – anyone can have a photo on a private jet or at Paris Fashion Week!
But this means TONS of new competition from both human and AI influencers.
@omooretweets
Jan 14
@venturetwins
Jan 05
Meet my AI clone! 🤖
I used @HeyGen_Official to make this avatar from a short clip of me – I can now make her say (almost) anything.
I think she passes as the real me pretty well…
@venturetwins
Jan 05
All Companionship & Social Content
-
Field Notes is a video podcast series on consumer tech by a16z. Connie Chan talks to former Vogue publisher Susan Plagemann of WME Fashion about editorial and social strategy.
-
Field Notes is a new video podcast series on consumer tech. Host Connie Chan and Poshmark cofounder Tracy Sun talk live-shopping, resale, and AI.
-
The a16z consumer team tapped a grab bag of fellow early-adopters and AI enthusiasts to share their favorite products from a weird and wonderful year.
-
I’ve been using ChatGPT like a daily journal to translate my innermost thoughts and feelings into a readily understandable format. I've been blown away by the results.
-
We crunched the data to find out: Which gen AI apps are people actually using? And which are they returning to, versus dabbling and dropping?
-
Thousands of new AI-native companies are vying for attention. We crunched the data to find out: Which generative AI products are people actually using?
-
We predict an Era of Abundance — lives will be enriched through new channels for creativity, along with new paths to self discovery and belonging.
-
Chatbots have been around for decades, but this time is different. Today’s bots are making inroads into our social lives.
-
In a world of retweets, upvotes, and right swipes, studies show that many of us still feel lonely. Thanks to generative AI, we potentially have a new solution: companion chatbots.
-
When a new social app starts to "work," it feels like magic, but often looks like a black box.
-
We’ve entered the age of generative AI. When new technology captures consumer attention so quickly, it begs the question: Is there real value here?
-
There's much more to generative AI than heroic avatars and tongue-in-cheek art. The potential applications are widespread, from drug discovery and therapy to writing, game development, education, ecommerce, and more. Las...
-
It’s no secret today’s young people prefer searching for recommendations on video apps over text-based search engines. Even the executives at Google know this. SVP Prabhakar Raghavan recently said that according to the c...
-
We worked hard this year to help tease apart what was hype/ what was real when it came to the buzz and noise around tech trends in the news this year (!) on our podcast show “16 Minutes.” To do so, we went beyond the hea...
-
From gaming to edtech, marketplaces to social+, these were the most-read consumer tech posts of the year.
-
An innovative new wave of social networks has arrived—from audio-first apps to social gaming to the countless consumer apps built with social in their DNA.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
Social Strikes Back is a series exploring the next generation of social networks and how they're shaping the future of consumer tech. See more at a16z.com/social-strikes-back.
-
There’s one rule of thumb that’s proven true over and over again: the best version of every consumer product is the one that’s intrinsically social.
-
As the shelter-in-place restrictions have tethered many people to their homes, livestreaming—broadcasting user-created video in real time—has skyrocketed. Platforms like Twitch, Caffeine, YouTube Live, and Facebook have...
-
This post, part 1 of 2, explains how platforms can help influencers monetize through digital goods and ecommerce. Part 2 will focus on platform memberships sold directly to end users.
-
In the future, we’re all going to be shopping on video apps like TikTok. Whether you’re buying instant noodles or high-end sweaters, it has become increasingly clear that short video clips are the future of ecommerce. Th...
-
One sunny afternoon this April, a Chinese teenager nicknamed Gallen was backpacking through Bali, hunting for things to do. But he didn't turn to TripAdvisor for crowd-sourced suggestions (too time consuming) or scroll t...
-
From emoji and selfies-as-stickers to filters and the “Instagrammification of everything”, there’s a new era of social self-expression happening.
-
Besides invisible messages, bigger and predictive emoji, full-screen effects, and movie/TV GIFs, Apple recently announced that stickers, too, are finally coming to its most popular app, iMessage. It’s no surprise that me...
-
Somewhere along the way Marc Andreessen went from being the pmarca who blogs to the @pmarca who tweets. Or rather, who tweetstorms.
-
Ahh, the Tweetstorm™. It seems like 2014 was the year the storm really hit Twitter, and @pmarca had a hand in popularizing that ... and let us assure you, it was his hand: no PR staff, ghostwriters, robots, or animals we...
-
1/Lots of Mirth over "Yo" today (http://t.co/vYHSgl9OOh) but actually there's a fascinating aspect lots of people are missing...
-
1/Proposed: Unless you're with your kids, what's on screen in your hand = likely more interesting & important than what's around you.
-
I recently joined App.net's board of directors and I'm really excited about Dalton Caldwell's grassroots campaign to build an ad- and influence-free social network. I have contributed to Dalton's quest and encourage ever...
-
Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Meetro and many other promising young startups have all ended up as casualties on the Hamburger Hill called social, mobile, local. With the emergence of a critical mass of GPS enabled smartphon...