/Tech1h ago

A16z's Olivia Moore says YC startups are shifting to vertical AI agents for heavy industries and high-ACV deals

Story Overview

Olivia Moore from a16z highlights how the latest YC cohort is deploying AI agents directly into manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics, where they connect with aging equipment and systems of record instead of waiting for polished integrations.

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Original post

Olivia Moore@omooretweets#1833inTech

Nothing more energizing than a week of meeting with @ycombinator companies!

Congrats to @garrytan and the whole team for another fantastic cohort - and to the founders taking big swings.

YC is often a few months ahead of the market - trends I noticed from the batch 👇

1. "Real economy" AI is here. Manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, etc. We have agents that can reliably operate across platforms, plug into legacy equipment, and scrape data from systems of record. Businesses that haven't bought new software in decades are now customers of AI.

2. The broker and the agency are becoming software. Founders are taking businesses that have always run on human middlemen and rebuilding them as agent-run platforms. This both unlocks labor budgets + allows you to own transactions and get outcome data that can be further used to improve the product / build a network.

3. Vertical AI is (often) routing around incumbents, not integrating with them. For many founders, the new playbook is to skip the official API entirely (computer-use, front-end reverse-engineering) so legacy software can't shut you off. Fragmented industries with no dominant platform are suddenly wide open.

4. Founders are going upmarket early, not eventually. ACVs for the first few customers are going up. Founders are starting on enterprise logos from day one and treating SMB as validation they've already outgrown. This might mean 1-2 $100k + ACV customers in the first 6 months versus a long tail of $10 - $20k logos.

5. Everyone is moving to the US - fast. A striking number of teams are international and already have real traction in their home markets, but are relocating to the US within weeks (visas in progress) post-YC to chase the bigger market. Yes, there will be outliers who build massive cos locally - but SF is the center of gravity.

6. Self-improving products are here. Teams are spinning up companies operated by agent "org charts" - who can not only run the product but proactively and autonomously make it better over time. Customers can prompt their own workflows...or the product will start to do this intelligently over time (on a per-product basis).

9:47 AM · Jun 14, 2026 · 9.2K Views

Industry Shift

Legacy Workflows Get Agent Upgrades

Founders are turning traditional broker and agency models into automated platforms that scrape and act on data from older infrastructure without needing official access.

Market Adoption

Founders Chase Larger Checks from Day One

Rather than stacking many small customers, teams are landing one or two six-figure annual contracts within the first six months to build momentum in fragmented verticals.

Sentiment

Users praise the YC batch for highlighting real economy AI and agent platforms taking off, citing team efforts and their own successes signing large enterprise deals.

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2 comments with sentiment.

Cluster Engagement

Posts from X

Most Activity

VIEWS2.1KLIKES6

Garry Tan@garrytan

@omooretweets @ycombinator Thank you! Team effort! YC rising!

Olivia Moore@omooretweets

Nothing more energizing than a week of meeting with @ycombinator companies!

Congrats to @garrytan and the whole team for another fantastic cohort - and to the founders taking big swings.

YC is often a few months ahead of the market - trends I noticed from the batch 👇

1h2.1K60

hrishikesh kamath@kamathhrishi

@omooretweets @garrytan @ycombinator Am I the only one who thinks this account is ghostwritten or automated 😶 good stuff but idk haha

1h532

Anil Murty ⟁@anilmurty_ai

@omooretweets @ycombinator @garrytan Interesting. Were cost of AI and driving TokeEfficiency not an important enough theme yet? I'm betting they will be come fall

1h32

egesea@egesea009

The common thread across these trends is that software is shifting from a tool to a participant. Historically, software helped humans do work. Increasingly, software is doing parts of the work itself: coordinating, negotiating, improving processes, and generating outcomes. That shift has implications far beyond startups.

38m41

Richard Mensah@riomensah

@omooretweets @ycombinator @garrytan we're signing high ACVs large enterprises at @salleylabs and skipping SMB :)

4m2

Kekko D’Amato@kekkodamato_

Point 6 is the one worth watching most carefully. Agent org charts that improve the product autonomously could flip the traditional feedback loop entirely — from "users tell you what's broken" to "the product discovers what's broken itself." That's a fundamentally different company architecture.

47m1

EloPhanto@EloPhanto

@omooretweets @ycombinator @garrytan “businesses that haven’t bought new software in decades” is the line.

the agent wedge is not better dashboards for people who already live in SaaS. it is surviving the forklift terminal, the PDF portal, and the 2009 login screen without crying.

50m1