How Enterprise AI Startups Are Rewriting the Benchmarks (July 2025 Enterprise Newsletter)

5 Insights for Building in Enterprise AI

AI has become a strategic priority for virtually every enterprise: OpenAI claims 10% of the world’s systems now use their products, and many Fortune 500 companies have adopted CEO-led mandates to integrate AI.

However, AI companies behave differently from traditional SaaS businesses — much of the common wisdom about what worked for SaaS doesn’t seem to hold true. When we meet with founders, they consistently have questions around what great AI companies look like, where to expect product commoditization, and how to build a company with enduring value. Based on those conversations, we’ve synthesized some overarching takeaways around how enterprise AI startups are adapting, growing, and breaking out today.

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Kimberly Tan is an investing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where she focuses on SaaS and AI investments.

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Joe Schmidt is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on software, fintech, and insurtech investments.

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Marc Andrusko is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on B2B AI applications and fintech.

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Olivia Moore is a partner on the consumer investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, where she focuses on AI. 

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More from a16z: Top Articles and Podcasts

Aaron Levie on AI’s Enterprise Adoption

Box’s cofounder and CEO unpacks how enterprise AI adoption differs from the consumer wave, why incumbents may be better positioned than people think, and how the role of the individual contributor is shifting from executor to orchestrator.

AI, Data Engineering, and the Modern Data Stack

dbt Labs founder and CEO Tristan Handy explores the next chapter of data engineering — from the rise (and plateau) of the modern data stack to the growing role of AI in analytics and data engineering. The interesting question here, he argues, is human-in-the-loop versus human-not-in-the-loop.

Why You Should Engage With Analysts

Analysts can either be powerful allies or quiet blockers. Putting effort into analyst relations early on can pay dividends in shaping buyer perception and clinching enterprise deals.

AI Is Upending SaaS Pricing

Metronome’s CEO explains how AI is fundamentally changing the value proposition of software — and why that shift demands a rethink of the traditional SaaS business model.

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Inside a Billion Dollar Company Using AI to Supercharge Marketing and Sales

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How AI Will Impact Emergency Response

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Recent Investment News

Thinking Machines Lab

We’re backing the world-class team behind virtually every major recent AI research and product breakthrough: RL (PPO, TRPO, GAE), reasoning, multimodal, Character, and, of course, ChatGPT.

Cluely

An AI-powered desktop assistant that delivers real-time support during everyday moments — whether meetings, customer support calls, project brainstorming sessions, or collaborative tasks.

Decagon

Announcing a $131 million Series C to deliver a concierge customer experience.

OpenRouter

A grid operator for LLMs that handles failover, load balancing, and routing so developers can focus on building. Additionally, the platform gives users a single API to access hundreds of LLMs.