Voice-First Apps, AI Moats, Never-Ending Games, and Anime. We asked over 40 partners across a16z to preview one big idea they believe will drive innovation in 2024.
Here in our 3-part series, you’ll hear directly from partners across all our verticals, as we dive even more deeply into these ideas. What’s the why now? Who is already building in these spaces? What opportunities and challenges are on the horizon? And how can you get involved?
00:00 – Big Ideas in Tech 2024
01:39 – Big Idea: Voice-First Apps Will Become Integral to Our Lives
04:14 – The limiting factors of voice technology
05:27 – What would a voice-first app look like?
06:52 – Voice tech for companionship and productivity
08:05 – The primary modality voice applications
10:08 – How builders and founders can integrate voice technology
13:31 – Big Idea: The Consumer AI Battleground Moves from Model to UX
15:49 – How user experience can contribute toward building a moat
17:57 – The commoditization of models
19:55 – How should builders differentiate between model and experience?
22:58 – Breakout examples for 2024
25:10 – Open source vs closed source
26:44 – The impact of applications splitting from the infrastructure layer
28:14 – Big Idea: AI-First Games That Never End
29:59 -Generative AI in gaming and AI native games
31:12 – Introducing generative agents as game companions
33:57 – Does the gaming community want hyper personalization?
38:00 – New entrants vs the incumbents
41:57 – How business models and cost structures are evolving
46:21 – Advice for game builders in 2024
48:03 – Big Idea: Anime Games Go Mainstream
49:28 – What defines anime?
52:05 – Anime’s monetization strategy and how it differs from other genres
54:04 – Why are we seeing a rise in anime?
55:56 – What is required to be successful in anime
58:20 – AI, XR and inventing the next wave of anime
View all 40+ big ideas: https://a16z.com/bigideas2024
Anish Acharya Anish Acharya is an entrepreneur and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. At a16z, he focuses on consumer investing, including AI-native products and companies that will help usher in a new era of abundance.
Alex Immerman is a partner on the Growth team at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on fintech, consumer, enterprise, and crypto/web3 companies.
Jonathan Lai is a general partner and founding investor of A16Z GAMES at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on investing at the intersection of games and consumer, social, web3, infrastructure, and fintech.
Robin Guo is a partner on the A16Z GAMES team at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on web2 and web3 studios, games adtech, AI applications, and the intersection of healthcare and games.
Steph Smith is the host of the a16z podcast, focused on highlighting the most important trends within technology.
The a16z Podcast discusses the most important ideas within technology with the people building it. Each episode aims to put listeners ahead of the curve, covering topics like AI, energy, genomics, space, and more.