After the breathless euphoria that greeted ChatGPT in late 2022, disillusionment soon crept in about AI models due to copyright infringement claims, model hallucinations, fears over AI’s societal harms and sustainability concerns.
At least it boosted business productivity and efficiency, right?
That pillar of belief began to wobble as “a whisper began to spread within Silicon Valley that generative AI was not actually useful. The products were falling far short of expectations, as evidenced by terrible user retention. End user demand began to plateau for many applications. Was this just another vaporware cycle?” according to Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most storied VC firms.
It’s not. Generative AI is entering its second act, the VC firm said in a blog post. In Act 2, generative AI will focus on use cases – how it solves problems from end-to-end. In this period, companies will use foundation models as a base for a more comprehensive and customized solution.
Here is Sequoia’s map for the generative AI market and infrastructure stack, as of September 2023.
