{"id":233000,"date":"2026-01-07T21:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/233000\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T21:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:16:08","slug":"vc-predicts-the-consumer-ai-products-openai-wont-want-to-kill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/233000\/","title":{"rendered":"VC predicts\u00a0the consumer AI products OpenAI \u2018won\u2019t want to kill\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/vanessalarco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Vanessa Larco<\/a>, partner at <a href=\"https:\/\/premise.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Premise<\/a> and former partner at NEA, thinks 2026 will finally be the year of consumer AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Larco, who\u2019s been investing in consumer and prosumer for years, thinks we\u2019re about to see a shift in how consumers spend time online, with AI powering \u201cconcierge-like\u201d services. The question is, will legacy consumer products like WebMD and TripAdvisor continue to exist as standalone apps, or will they just get absorbed into ChatGPT or Meta AI? And where can startups carve out an AI-powered niche for themselves?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today on TechCrunch\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/podcasts\/equity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Equity<\/a> podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Larco to talk about why consumer is back, what OpenAI won\u2019t kill, and where the real opportunities are hiding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listen to the full episode to hear about:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Why Larco thinks OpenAI won\u2019t build marketplace businesses that require managing real humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Larco\u2019s take on \u201cdisposable software\u201d and why AI apps \u201cshould be treated like Word docs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>How Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses turned Larco into a believer in voice interfaces (and why she thinks screens are optional for most tasks).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More predictions for 2026, including another huge year for M&amp;A.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What new business models stablecoins could unlock.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Subscribe to Equity on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/techcrunch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/id1215439780\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/itunes1215439780\/equity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Overcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5IEYLip3eDppcOmy5DmphC?si=rZDFHv2sQUul_g94iCRgpQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Spotify<\/a>, and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EquityPod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">X<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.net\/@equitypod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Threads<\/a>, at @EquityPod.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vanessa Larco, partner at Premise and former partner at NEA, thinks 2026 will finally be the year of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,118993,33694,61,60,90913,1682,72804,80,118994,3926],"class_list":{"0":"post-233000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-consumer-ai","12":"tag-equity-podcast","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-meta-ray-ban","16":"tag-openai","17":"tag-physical-ai","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-vanessa-larco","20":"tag-wearables"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}