Jun 13, 2025 · 29m · a16z
What You Missed in AI This Week (Google, Apple, ChatGPT)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this inaugural episode of 'This Week in Consumer AI,' a16z venture partners Justine and Olivia Moore analyze major developments across consumer artificial intelligence, including Google's Veo 3 video model, OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode, Apple's WWDC updates, ElevenLabs' Eleven v3, proprietary startup revenue data, and a practical AI brand creation workflow.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 6.2 Guest teaching 5.0 Guest disagreement 1.0 The host pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:18 Playful Callout on Fake Accent Demo
In an entirely non-adversarial episode, the highest friction occurs within a scripted AI voice clip where a second character interrupts to call out a fake Texas accent.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 10:46 Critiquing Siri's Basic LimitationsJustine highlights Siri's inability to answer a simple calendar query, expressing frustration when it defers the question directly to ChatGPT.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:36 Consumer AI Startup Revenue Data RevealOlivia educates listeners and her co-host with hard startup data, revealing that consumer AI companies achieve a median ARR of $4.2M after one year compared to pre-AI norms.
The host holds their own ▶ 18:27 Dissecting Model Inference EconomicsJustine demonstrates deep domain expertise by explaining how high per-query GPU inference costs upended traditional zero-marginal-cost software economics.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legal Disclaimers and Investment Disclosures | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Justine provides technical details on Google DeepMind's VO3 video model, explaining native audio generation and API pricing (~$0.75/sec). She educates Olivia on why eight-second limits force creators to use masked characters like Stormtroopers for visual consistency. The dialogue is strictly collaborative and informative without adversarial tension. | |
| ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode Updates and Live Demo | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The co-hosts conduct a live test of ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode to assess new expressiveness and speech artifacts. Olivia frames how NotebookLM previously set the benchmark for natural vocal pauses, forcing OpenAI to upgrade. The interaction remains entirely conversational and mutually supportive. | |
| Apple WWDC Announcements and Consumer AI Expectations | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | The hosts review Apple Intelligence features before playing a demo of 11Labs V3 voice generation. Justine breaks down how tag-based text prompts allow emotional inflections, whispering, and mid-sentence interruptions. The exchange is completely non-combative with high mutual interest in creative tools. | |
| Consumer AI Startup Revenue Growth and Monetization Data | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Olivia shares exclusive venture capital dataset findings showing consumer AI startups reaching a median ARR of $4.2M at month 12. Justine adds analysis on model inference costs driving subscription pricing models. The conversation showcases strong subject matter expertise from both speakers without conflict. | |
| Demo of the Week: AI-Powered Brand Creation (Melt Froyo) | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Justine demonstrates an end-to-end brand design workflow using ChatGPT, Ideagram, and Crea's Flux Context model for a mock froyo brand. Olivia discusses the broader shift toward AI-assisted full-stack entrepreneurship. Both hosts agree on all points throughout the practical walkthrough. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Justine Moore: Google Veo 3 Is AI Video's ChatGPT Moment
“VO three was sort of like the chat GPT moment for AI video.”
Justine Moore: Veo 3 natively generates audio alongside video
“And what's very different about it is it generates audio natively at the same time it generates video.”
Justine Moore: Veo 3 API pricing is around 75 cents per second
“Some of the more developer-oriented, like, API platforms, like Fall or Replicate, are offering generations where you pay per video. It's priced around, like, 75 seconds. 75 cents per second today.”
Justine Moore: Google's next video model will struggle with coherence and cost
“So I would imagine, you know, Google will want to train the next model that's even bigger and is able to generate longer videos, but we'll struggle with things like coherence, and we'll also struggle with, honestly, the pricing of the model.”
Olivia Moore: ChatGPT pioneered real-time consumer voice in September 2023
“ChatGPT was the first one to do what I would call kind of real-time consumer voice. Where you could have, like, a conversation. And this was, like, last September in the ChatGPT app.”
Olivia Moore: NotebookLM pioneered realistic conversational disfluencies in AI voice
“Notebook LM came out, and that was the first real voice experience that put in those ums, ahs, pauses, other things that are so human-like”
Olivia Moore: Backlash over 'Sky' voice spooked OpenAI from releasing human-sounding AI
“I honestly think a big part of it might have been when they first released advanced voice mode, if you remember all the controversy around her, And was this gonna be a, you know, a companion that replaced humans, and some of what people would think of as kind …”
Olivia Moore: Apple is outsourcing core mobile AI features to ChatGPT
“It does seem like from a lot of Apple's updates that they put out, they're kind of outsourcing a lot of the true AI features to ChatGPT just running on your phone.”
Olivia Moore: Notification summary backlash spooked Apple into delaying AI Siri
“It seems like that spooked Apple a little bit, and they keep kind of retrenching on the timeline of releasing AI Siri.”
Justine Moore: Natural conversational audio was unavailable before ElevenLabs Eleven v3
“And so for narrative storytelling, for ads, marketing, anything, it makes it sound like a natural conversation, which we've never had with AI voice before.”
Olivia Moore: Consumer AI startups reach $4.2M median ARR in Year 1
“What we found was actually pretty surprising, which is that the median ARR, annualized revenue run rate, is now 4.2 million dollars at month 12 for consumer startups. The bottom quartile is 2.9 million. And the top quartile is 8.7 million.”
Olivia Moore: Consumer AI startup revenue grows twice as fast as B2B
“And the even more surprising thing is those numbers are twice as high as the B to B benchmarks in the AI era.”
Olivia Moore: Consumer AI startups charge an average of $22 per month
“So we also ran some extra some additional data analysis that shows that On average, consumer AI startups are charging 22 dollars a month across the average user, which again is like more than double what they were able to charge pre-AI for subscription compani…”
Olivia Moore: Paid retention for consumer AI matches pre-AI benchmarks
“But if you look at it on a paid user basis, so once you actually subscribe, consumer AI companies are retaining at the median pretty much just as well. As pre-AI consumer companies, which is really exciting.”
Olivia Moore: AI startups convert consumer usage to enterprise contracts faster
“And we're seeing, I would say, companies convert consumer revenue to enterprise revenue. Way faster than they ever did before. Like, companies like Canva previously took five, six, seven plus years to really move from consumer prosumer to enterprise. And now w…”