Remember that rollicking, strange moment, just a few weeks after ChatGPT came out in 2022, where everyone was awed but asking: Wait, what can I do with this?
I was thinking about that time—a veritable century ago in AI years—as I sat on the stage and in the audience at Fortune Brainstorm AI London. It occurred to me: Part of why that time feels so far away is because we now have so many answers to that question. Synthesia and WPP are using generative AI to build corporate avatars that are actually being used, and to make commercials that are actually being aired. Legal AI startup Harvey is deployed massively across companies like PwC, helping thousands of lawyers with documentation and case law. Winston Weinberg, CEO and cofounder of Harvey, said this frees up young lawyers from grunt work to pursue in-person, higher-level opportunities sooner in their careers.
“If you can give [junior associates] that human training earlier on, they’re going to actually really enjoy their job more, and it looks more like what it looks like on TV,” Weinberg told the audience.
There are more, and more: EBay is now using AI agents. Tye Brady, Amazon Robotics chief technologist, took the stage to talk about the AI innovations behind the e-commerce giant’s new warehouse robots that can “feel.” And Accenture’s Fernando Lucini told the audience: “we use it very extensively with our HR systems,” along with other functions like marketing.
As social media vibe coding discourse may suggest, software development is especially huge. Seth Dobrin, founder and CEO of Qantm AI, said that “there are startups doing 90% to 95% of their code with AI.” It’s also thorny—Jason Warner, cofounder and CEO at Poolside, was really candid about what might change for software engineering workers in the coming years.
“When you’re talking about technology like this, you must talk about human replacement,” Warner told the audience. “I think when you say something is capable of doing the mean information work of somebody, there are many people out there saying: Oh yes, I can’t wait to replace some portion of my employee base with this. But I think that’s obviously going to be a strategic decision for every business. When this is available, every company is going to have a choice.”
And that begins to get at something that I think is essentially true—that the clearer and more real this wave of AI use cases is becoming, the more questions we have. We’re so far removed from “what can we do with this.” The question, instead, has decisively become “how?” and “what limitations do we (or should we) have?”
Which is where the tension lies. We’re starting to have an incredibly clear sense of what’s possible, but we don’t have a good sense about what the societal implications of AI adoption actually look like. Looking at financial services, for example, agents are clearly going to play a role, but how much of a role remains to be seen, said Carlo Bruno, VP of Product at Adyen.
“Our customers are looking for frictionless shopping experiences, lower costs, and better fraud management,” Bruno said onstage. “The key question is: Will agents completely take over the digital storefront experience?”
We don’t know, because AI is right now caught between its theoretical past and its practical future. In that gap, there are a lot of exciting questions about what AI might mean for our collective future. And a lot of scary questions. In one panel about how AI is affecting children, Baroness Joanna Shields spoke passionately.
“We can’t productize humanity,” said Shields. “We can’t productize a person, and create something that’s a substitute for real human contact.”
It’s a gripping statement that’s fighting a relentless tide, with more questions than ever about what’s possible. And in London, it felt like we were all looking for answers together, in a brainstorm.
ICYMI…At Brainstorm AI London, I was joined by a stellar group of VCs onstage to talk about AI investing in Europe—a profound thank you to GV’s Tom Hulme, IVP’s Alex Lim, Accel’s Ben Fletcher, and Balderton’s Rana Yared. You can read our writeup of the panel here.
See you Monday,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Gruve.ai, a Redwood City, Calif.-based AI services platform, raised $37.5 million across seed and Series A rounds. The $17.5 million seed round was led by cofounders Tarun Raisoni and Sushil Goyal while the $20 million Series A round was led by Mayfield and joined by Cisco Investments and others.
- Valarian, a London, U.K.-based enterprise infrastructure company, raised $20 million in seed funding. Scout Ventures and Artis Ventures led the round and were joined by Gokul Rajaram.
- Doubleword, a London, U.K.-based self-hosted inference platform for enterprises, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Dawn Capital led the round and was joined by others.
- Kouper, a New York City-based health technology platform, raised $10 million in funding from General Catalyst, 25Madison, and CVS Health Ventures.
- Uviquity, a Raleigh, N.C.-based photonics disinfection company, raised $6.6 million in seed funding. Emerald Development Managers led the round and was joined by AgFunder and MANN+HUMMEL.
- Clean Cult, a New York City-based company that sells cleaning products in paper-based cartons, raised $5 million in a Series B extension from Sage Hill Investors, Maywic Select Investments, and others.
- Operand, a San Francisco-based developer of AI-powered consulting agents, raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Felicis led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, SV Angel, Soma Capital, and angel investors.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Azimut Group agreed to increase its share in HighPost Capital, a West Palm Beach, Fla.-based private equity firm, from 15% to 56%. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- The Hardenbergh Group, backed by BV Investment Partners, merged with Sentact, a Pittsburgh, Penn. and Chicago, Ill.-based patient safety and experience company, and Preverity, a Nashville, Tenn.-based patient safety company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Tyto Athene, a portfolio company of Arlington Capital Partners, acquired stackArmor, a Reston, Va.-based cyber compliance and cloud capabilities company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
PEOPLE
- 2150, a London, U.K., Copenhagen, Denmark, and Berlin, Germany-based venture capital firm, promoted Alexander Kielland to COO, Nicole Florack to vice president, and Max Blanshard to vice president. The firm also hired Patricia Wexler as venture partner.
- Coalesce Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm, appointed John Mulflur as a managing director. He most recently served as a managing director in the services sector at Permira.
