Where are investors betting next year? AI, AI, AI.

Marketers at TechCrunch Disrupt weren’t shy about admitting that they’re interested in one thing: artificial intelligence.

Nina Achadjian from Index, Jerry Chen from Greylock and Peter Deng from Felicis, all talked about the latest trends in finance and how startups can stand out in a rapidly saturated market. The world is moving fast, Achadjian told the crowd, and the industry is growing exponentially.

“We spend a lot of time evaluating the entrepreneur and how they can be resilient in times of rapid change,” Achadjian said. Now more than ever, startups need to lean on showing their passion, expertise, and staying true to their market growth, he said.

“There’s a lot that commercial companies need to test the latest and greatest AI, sometimes there’s a false positive about the product market,” he said, “and you can make a lot of money without a real ROI,” meaning customers getting their money back.

This leads to another concept that VCs are looking for: the ability to pivot when the market is shaking. “There is a joke that, 1000 founders die and that’s why courage is important,” continued Achadjian.

Deng, who worked at OpenAI, added to Achadjian’s words. He said startups need to find their own unique connections that will separate them from the crowd of like-minded people, especially since venture capital firms that are testing their products are also testing their competitors at the same time.

“If you can go deep and solve a real need for them,” in a way they can’t do on their own, then data management is “where the important part is,” he said.

Startups also need to have an answer for why their product can’t just be added to the startup, Achadjian said. It would be good if the founder does not know if the model manufacturers are working on the competition but he should have an idea of ​​how the business is protected by investing investors.

Currently, what is working in AI seems to be three things, Chen said: Chat software, writing software, and AI in customer service. But there is a big change that needs to happen at the beginning of every phase and industry.

Deng is excited about AI-powered markets. Meanwhile, Achadjian thinks this could be the era of robotics, while Chen wants to see how AI affects SaaS and other markets that haven’t yet been directly affected.

So what’s not AI and fun? “It’s paper and paper and I’m going to digitize it,” Achadjian said. There are many blue-collar factories that, surprisingly, still do a lot of manual processes, he continued. But, he admitted that this is enough to have an opportunity to develop AI machines.