The future with AI
The why, what & how of this future
Welcome to the 15th edition of Perplexed by Jaga.
I built this digital garden to share everything that has perplexed me about AI, marketing & the future of work with AI. If it’s your first time here, you can find older posts here and read more about me here.
The other day, I was jamming with a friend about prompting like a PRO and the future of knowledge work.
Both of us agreed that “AI becoming foundational to work felt both imminent and inevitable”
But we both failed to answer the how, why & what.
So I searched the internet for an answer and landed on the Ascent 25 Keynote by Sequoia.
Here are four key insights into the what, how & why of AI 👇🏻
1. What is the market?
When Salesforce launched in the late 1990s, running software over the cloud looked like a massive business risk. Marc Benioff had to pull many crazy stunts to get people to consider software in the cloud.
But today, it powers the entire software economy and has eclipsed traditional on-prem software.
Cloud computing enabled the rapid growth of the software market, making it bigger than it could have ever been.
However, we have only built software for industries with a large market and homogeneous problem statements. Many industries, such as healthcare, manufacturing, and agriculture, have seen software adoption, but it's shallow, fragmented, or poorly integrated.
AI is going after this market already.
Apart from this, AI is also going after the services industry.
The combination of all of this is why the AI opportunity is massive today
AI opportunity = existing software markets + underserved traditional sectors + professional services ripe for automation
2. But why now?
There is a reason ChatGPT reached ~100 million users in two months, even though it was a relatively new product.
Yes, the product had a Delta 4 experience, which blew it up.
Incredible product → Word of mouth → Virality → Growth.
But the railroads for this were paved in the last 40 years with 👇🏻
Access to computing power over the cloud.
Access to Zettabytes of user-generated data on the internet.
Access to the internet allowed millions to access it in the first place.
Specialised talent who can build it and distribute it over the internet.
All of this had to come together for an innovative tech like ChatGPT to work and reach millions of people EVERY SINGLE DAY.
The thesis for AI is simple 👇🏻
The same forces which allowed ChatGPT to blow up will also enable AI to enter other industries where software and technology have lagged for the longest time, for various reasons.
The partners at Sequoia had a brilliant example for explaining this - the physics of distribution.
People have to know your thing
They have to want your thing
They have to be able to buy your thing
Miss one, distribution is hard.
ChatGPT & other AI tools came at the right time when all three were available.
3. What now?
“95% of building a company in the age of AI is the same as building a company”
Identify a good problem.
Figure out a better way to solve it.
Let potential customers know that you can solve it.
Solve it well, record proof, and create a repeatable way to help more customers.
And tada - a business reveals itself.
The 5% difference for AI lies in how you think about the following 👇🏻
Is my product creating behaviour change, and am I earning the customer's trust?
Am I moving from selling a tool → selling an outcome for the end user?
Do I have a data flywheel which makes my product powerful with more usage
Very important: Does the usage of my product move an important business metric?
Today the majority of tech and internet companies exist in the application layer. The same will be true for businesses after AI as well.
The whitespace for builders is in the application layer.
The difference lies in the nuances of how you use AI to build your product, create better outcomes for customers, improve your messaging, differentiate your positioning & solidify your moat.
4. Where do we go now?
Forget economic growth, tariffs, tax laws, and all the other macro events happening worldwide.
Never before has there been a time when so many businesses have collectively opened their wallet to a new technology (like AI) at such a massive pace.
Technology adoption has always taken time.
Cloud computing, the internet, and even smartphones took their sweet time to become widely used.
But millions of humans want AI now & they want it to solve problems for them.
This creates a powerful vacuum that absorbs any product that can solve the problem for them (hopefully faster and better with AI). The best advice is to identify the problem, build solutions and get in front of the market.
This post combines the insights I’ve learnt from external sources and those I’ve borrowed from the Sequoia Ascent 2025 Keynote here. Most of the screenshots were also from the presentation they had shared in this keynote.
Thanks for reading
