New Andreessen Horowitz thesis - an update on AI voice agents!
2024 was a huge year for voice agents, with massive model breakthroughs + hundreds of new startups. How has the space evolved, and where do we see opportunity in 2025?
To start: we see voice as one of AI's biggest unlocks. In the last six months, we've seen massive steps forward on the model side. Latency and reliability are now largely solved - and interruptibility and emotionality have made major strides, too. Voice AI is now nearly at human standards, allowing tech to replace labor on the phone.
As a result, there's been an explosion in startups building applications on these models. Y Combinator alone has seen 90 voice agent cos. Many are targeting specific verticals - by industry (e.g. home services, dental) or function (e.g. recruiting, customer support) - and are scaling fast!
In most cases, we see voice is a wedge - not the product. Most companies need to tap into adjacent workflows: pushing call details to a CRM, automating follow-ups, etc.
What we're looking for in voice agent startups:
- Building in an industry where phone is the preferred or required medium, or has a much higher success rate than other modalities
- Calls are constrained — both in length and in format/outcome
- Voice agent delivers 50%+ cost reduction with similar success rate as a human
- Calls are "life or death" for the customer —they will pay significant $ to get them made or answered...but not for the end consumer
- When selling into SMB/mid-market, the agent product has easy integration. When selling into enterprise, complex integration can be a moat!
If you're building here, reach out! 👋 We are very actively investing in this space. And read our full thesis here: https://lnkd.in/gQ_psdxJ
