Unique Research · Insight · June 13, 2024
Key points. ChatGPT lit the GenAI boom; builders are now racing toward stronger tools — AI agents. Microsoft AI VP Jared Spataro told CNBC a “torrent of innovation” has followed ChatGPT. Like other GenAI startups, agent companies already show frothy valuations.
Agents are catching fire
Earlier this year, Klarna said its OpenAI-powered agent took over two-thirds of customer chats — workload equal to ~700 FTEs — after only a month. Echo AI CEO Alexander Kvamme told CNBC that Klarna’s February claim may be agents’ first “ChatGPT moment.”
ChatGPT (late 2022) showed consumers a conversational alternative to search. Google and Microsoft followed. The industry moved from text to AI photos and video; now agents are rising. Agents don’t just answer — they are built to raise productivity and finish tasks. Kvamme: tools that can decide, for better or worse, “without human intervention.”
Lux Capital’s Grace Isford says investor interest in agent startups has “surged” — hundreds of millions raised as valuations rose with GenAI. PitchBook: GenAI in 2023 ≈ 700 deals / $29.1B, deal value up >260% YoY, while non-AI venture cooled for 2+ years after the pandemic peak. If 2023 was the boom, 2024 is early real deployment.
Spataro (Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest backer): “Since ChatGPT launched, the market really has seen a torrent of innovation.”
What “agent” means
There is no crisp industry definition. Experts talking to CNBC generally place agents a step beyond chatbots — often built for a business function and customized on large models. Think J.A.R.V.I.S. Advanced GenAI that runs multi-step work, builds its own to-do list, and doesn’t need step-by-step babysitting. Amplitude CPO Francois Ajenstat: “An assistant doesn’t just give answers — it runs a sequence of steps.”
Big Tech’s agent bets
Satya Nadella has said he wants agents that do more and more for users, with “a lot of work still ahead.” Meta and Google execs likewise pitch productivity assistants.
- Google I/O — Project Astra (DeepMind): find glasses, check code, answer questions about shown objects; prototype; Sundar Pichai hopes for later this year.
- OpenAI — GPT-4o: voice, vision; interlocutor, translator, math tutor, coding partner. CTO Mira Murati: 2× GPT-4 Turbo speed, half the cost.
- Microsoft Build — partnership with Cognition AI bringing Devin (“first AI software engineer”) — plan, code, test, ship multi-step work.
Cohere COO Martin Kon: agents may book/pay flights, suggest loan rates, email arrival times and update Salesforce. So far tools are still heavy on coding help — GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke (early 2023): ~46% of code across languages on GitHub was AI-generated. Experts say the defining move is beyond a single app toward a general personal assistant. Anthropic and others first give bots tool/service access. Spataro: building Copilot coding agents felt “strapped to a rocket” — from one- or two-step tasks to multi-step (e.g., scan calendar, surface day’s priorities in 30 seconds).
Macquarie’s Fred Havemeyer: agentic AI that autonomously steers tasks will unlock AGI-like value for ordinary users. OpenAI’s Romain Huet: agent hype rose last year; making tools more autonomous still needs work — models better capture intent, but “we’re still early on agents.” Biggest leap: agents that know preferences and act “on your behalf without being asked.”
How startups punch above weight
Agent startups draw big checks — not yet foundation-model billions, but valuations often ahead of fundamentals.
- Adept (OpenAI/Google alumni) — >$1B valuation last year; “solves software complexity so you don’t have to.”
- H (France) — $220M seed in May from Amazon, Samsung, UiPath, Eric Schmidt, et al.
- Artisan AI (YC) — $7.3M seed; “enterprise AI employees”; 100+ enterprise customers. CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack: real agents only became possible when ChatGPT let consumers interact with such tools in 2022. “Everyone says VC is down — for us it feels like 2021 for AI startups.”
Snorkel AI co-founder Braden Hancock compares the hype cycle to autonomous driving: mainstream agents need to be many times better before people cede control — especially signing and moving money. Imbue’s Kanjun Qiu (Amazon Alexa Fund, Eric Schmidt; >$1B valuation): users don’t yet need the “universal smart PA” as described — agents “aren’t fully reliable.” Even a strong human EA after two years doesn’t get every new task blindly. Imbue’s bet: let users create their own agents without coding (news trackers, travel bots) on private, customized apps — control with the user, not a centralized OpenAI/Google agent. Qiu: “Think of agents as tools that let everyone create software” — users have the agent write code so the computer does what they want.
Compiled from CNBC reporting; Unique Research editorial. Charts attach on ingest (5 images).