The State of AI: Macro, Apps, and Consumer

For the last few years, the biggest question in AI was which model would win. The next phase may be less about the models and more about what gets built on top of them. In this episode, Jen Ka sits down with Anish Acharya to unpack where AI goes next. From an increasingly competitive model landscape to the explosion of applications turning raw intelligence into products people actually use. They discuss why AI models aren't becoming commodities, where open weight models have an advantage, and why Anish believes the application layer can capture significant value even as Frontier Labs continue to grow. Then they turn to consumer AI, where personal agents are beginning to shop, manage inboxes, and take action on our behalf. Anisha explains why this could be a renaissance for consumer builders and why a new generation of founders may need to think much bigger about what AI makes possible. To help me break down all things around this incredible abundance, I'm gonna bring up Anish Acharya. And Thank you, sir. Hi. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, Anish. Anish and I were at a GP off-site earlier this week, and he shared with me that he's already running Grabbot and has purchased a bunch of jeans for him. So, Anish, do you wanna drop what you purchased? True story. True story. Yes. I'm gonna reveal an important secret protected IP, which is that I mostly wear Frame jeans. Frame is a great brand. Oh. And GrokBot is an awesome product, actually. I'd say the kind of defining characteristic of GrokBot is sort of resourcefulness. I went to bed a few nights to go and said, hey. Buy me a pair of jeans that are inspired by these. I took a photo of my current jeans. I said, don't spend more than $500 and get it done. I woke up in the morning, and it had researched, found a pair, same fit, different wash, used my credit card, purchased them, and they're on the way. So I think that is gonna be something that we see more and more of. We already have the capabilities, and now a lot of the kinda unlock will come from resourcefulness and also the kind of product architecture delivered in a way that most consumers can understand. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I told my team that I'm gonna set my bot to finally take care of the pile of things I've been promising my husband that I'm gonna sell for the last two years. That is the project for this weekend. So, Anish, we asked the question earlier, which one of today's AI leaders will be the clear winner in three years from now? What's your take? I'm a many winners guy. Yeah. I'm in good company with many of you. I mean, if you look at what's happened in the last two weeks, XAI went from not even being a real contender on the model side to being one of three. So we …