2023 Big Ideas in Technology (Part 1)

A16z Podcast

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Social platforms will become a natural place for product discovery as platforms will ease the friction between inspiration, purchase intent, and completed purchases China is mobile-only, compared to the U.S. which is mobile-first, so China tends to iterate on mobile features much faster than the U.S. In 2019, two-thirds of Americans said they had a favorite local place they went to regularly. Four years later, that two-thirds has decreased to one-half. Gaming bots have historically been scripted procedures but are increasingly becoming network-based AIs that are more convincing to humansMultiplayer games of the future may consist of perfectly catered AIs specifically designed for each gamerBrands will lean into the platforms that enable interoperability across platformsOf the group of digital natives, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha, 2 in 5 already believe that self-expression via fashion is more important in the digital world than the physicalGenerative AI will advance beyond “text to image” to more complex workflows, such as “text to SQL queries” or, eventually, “text to excel modeling” and more Much of the truly useful data is actually proprietary enterprise data and is not widely available on the internet for AIs to train on “If your company does not have an AI strategy, it should really be thinking about one yesterday.” – Sarah Wang  Fintech companies will need to strike a delicate balance between building with new technology rails while maintaining customer trust Regardless of the platform shift, distribution is always key

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At the end of 2022, our team at a16z asked dozens of partners across the firm to spotlight one big idea that startups in their fields could tackle in 2023.

Emerging from this exercise came 40+ builder-worthy pursuits for the year, ranging from entertainment franchise games to precision delivery of medicine to small modular reactors, and of course loads of AI applications.

In our 2-part series, we’ll be covering 12 of these big ideas with the partners that shared them.

Here in part 1, we’ll cover Consumer, Games, and Enterprise, with a little Fintech sprinkled in. Listen in as we chat with Connie Chan, Anne Lee Skates, Jack Soslow, Doug McCracken, Sarah Wang, and Sumeet Singh.

And look out for part 2 dropping soon, covering Fintech, American Dynamism, and Bio & Health!

For the full list of 40+ ideas, check out the full article: https://a16z.com/2022/12/15/big-ideas-in-tech-2023/

Topics Covered:

(1:30) Breakthroughs in Buying (Finally!) - Connie Chan(16:40) Unlocking the “Third Place” - Anne Lee Skates(30:14) Games as a Neverending Turing Test - Jack Soslow(46:09) The Metaverse Goes Fashion Forward - Doug McCracken(59:24) Generative AI Advances Beyond “Text to Image” to Complex Workflows - Sarah Wang(1:12:23) Embracing Large Language Models and Maintaining Trust - Sumeet Singh

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