According to TechCrunch, Vanessa Larco, a partner at venture firm Premise, declared on the Equity podcast that 2026 will be “the year of the consumer” for AI startups. She argues that while enterprise adoption is often stalled by confusion, consumers and prosumers know exactly what they want to use AI for, leading to quicker purchases and clearer product-market fit. Larco points to OpenAI’s launch of GPTs for services like Expedia and Spotify as an early indicator of this shift, where AI acts as a concierge. She also highlights the growing problem of AI-generated “slop” muddying truth on platforms like Instagram during major news events, and she’s a huge fan of voice-first devices like Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which she sees as the future for many interactions.
The Enterprise vs. Consumer Pivot
Here’s the thing: Larco’s argument makes a ton of sense if you’ve ever tried to sell software to a big company. Enterprises have the budgets, sure. But they’re also labyrinths of committees, legacy systems, and risk aversion. “They don’t know where to start,” as she puts it. A contract isn’t the same as genuine, widespread adoption. Consumer tech is brutally honest. You build something, people either use it or they don’t. There’s no six-month pilot program to hide behind. That feedback loop is lightning fast, which is exactly what early-stage startups need. In a shaky economy, a consumer product that scales isn’t just popular—it’s probably solving a real, urgent pain point. The pivot away from the enterprise gold rush feels inevitable. We’ve been building tools for businesses to get marginally more efficient. Now, the real question is what we build for people to actually live differently.
OpenAI’s Shadow and New Models
Now, the elephant in the room is OpenAI. Larco frames it perfectly: as OpenAI works to make ChatGPT the new OS, which standalone companies survive? Her filter for investments is clever: she wants startups “OpenAI isn’t going to want to kill.” Basically, anything that involves managing real-world assets, physical inventory, or actual humans—think an Airbnb or a TaskRabbit—is probably safe from being built in-house by them. That’s a solid thesis. But her other point is more ominous. What if OpenAI, with its massive distribution, decides to take a 30% platform tax, like Apple’s App Store? Would a company like Airbnb play ball? That could strangle new business models before they even start. It means the next wave of consumer success stories might not just be about a great app, but about cleverly navigating or circumventing these new platform powers. The monetization playbook is being rewritten right now.
The Slop Problem and Voice Future
Larco’s anecdote about the AI-generated Maduro content is a canary in the coal mine. When a savvy tech investor can’t tell what’s real on a major social platform during a crisis, we have a fundamental problem. Her conclusion is stark: maybe we should just stop trying to get news from Meta altogether. If it’s all becoming AI-generated entertainment slop, then maybe that’s all it is—an entertainment company. That creates a massive vacuum. Where do people go for verified information? This chaos, ironically, might be an opportunity for others. But the more exciting shift she sees is in form factor. She’s bullish on voice AI, finally. Screens have been a crutch because voice tech sucked. But with better tech, why pull out a phone to ask what the tallest building is? That does feel archaic. I think she’s right. The next design challenge won’t just be about UI on a glass rectangle, but about figuring out what deserves a screen and what’s better as a voice in your ear—or on your face, like her beloved Ray-Bans.
Why 2026 Makes Sense
So why 2026 and not, say, next year? Timing. The enterprise AI wave is still cresting; budgets are being spent. The foundational AI models need another cycle of improvement to be truly seamless for complex consumer tasks. And frankly, it takes time to build the kind of integrated, hardware-software experiences—like those smart glasses—that make consumer AI feel magical, not just like a chatbot. 2026 gives the ecosystem time to mature, for the “slop” problem to force a content reckoning, and for developers to explore past the obvious ideas. Larco isn’t just predicting a trend; she’s outlining a full-stack shift in how we interact with technology. From where we get information, to how we ask for it, to who profits from it. If she’s right, the next two years are for building in the quiet, before the consumer storm hits.
