Mar 12, 2026 · 54m · big-technology
AI’s Unpopularity + Competing With ChatGPT — With Olivia Moore
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In this episode of the Big Technology Podcast, host Alex Kantrowitz and Andreessen Horowitz partner Olivia Moore analyze the evolving artificial intelligence landscape, exploring how startups can compete against foundation model giants, the true potential of autonomous agents, and AI's real-world impact on labor productivity and consumer behavior.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Alex holds 33.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Alex as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 5.6 Guest disagreement 1.7 Alex pushing back 2.9
speaking balance: gold is Alex, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:55 Olivia rejects Anthropic's AI anxiety claim
Olivia firmly rejects the premise that Claude experiences genuine anxiety, labeling it performative behavior engineered to hook humans emotionally.
Hardest push from Alex ▶ 13:56 Alex challenges vertical moat thesis with autonomous codingAlex refuses Olivia's framing that foundation models cannot replace specialized vertical accounting software, citing his own experience watching Claude Code solve complex autonomous tasks.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:19 Olivia details App Store divergence and web traffic multiplesOlivia provides hard benchmark data from her top 100 consumer AI report, revealing that Gemini lags ChatGPT by 3x, Claude lags by 30x, and their respective app ecosystems overlap by only 11%.
Alex holds their own ▶ 15:38 Alex uses Amazon's $50B investment and accounting bot mechanics to press his pointAlex demonstrates deep technical comprehension by detailing how foundational models could easily incorporate continuous regulatory scrapers, challenging the conventional defense for legacy software moats.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Alex as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Alex pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Skepticism and Negative Sentiment Toward AI | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Alex opens the conversation by citing detailed statistics from a new NBC News poll showing negative public sentiment toward AI. Olivia explains the dynamic through media narratives around resource consumption and public anxiety over creative jobs. | |
| Labor Market Fears vs. AI-Driven Productivity and Growth | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Alex challenges the narrative by referencing lab leaders' alarming statements about white-collar replacement and contrasts them with hiring data from Citadel and Wharton. Olivia agrees that AI lab leaders are researchers rather than consumer marketing experts or economists. | |
| The AI Adoption Divide and the Global Economic Imperative | 5 | 5 | 1 | 3 | Alex quotes Olivia's report on global competition and asks whether the AI economy will be winner-take-all or distributed. Olivia argues resource constraints at foundation labs leave large openings for independent startups. | |
| Vertical Specialization vs Horizontal Chatbots | 7 | 6 | 3 | 6 | Alex actively pushes back against Olivia's thesis on vertical AI apps by pointing to autonomous coding capabilities like Claude Code, arguing accounting rules can just as easily be baked into foundation models. Olivia defends vertical specialization based on workflow friction and legacy integrations. | |
| Benchmarking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude | 5 | 7 | 2 | 3 | Olivia educates the host with empirical data from A16Z's consumer AI tracking, noting the traffic multiples between ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, as well as the mere 11% overlap between Claude and ChatGPT app ecosystems. | |
| AI Personality Tests and the Psychology of LLMs | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Alex inquires about Olivia's experiment running LLMs through DSM-V personality tests. Olivia rejects Anthropic's framing of Claude experiencing anxiety as performative engagement. | |
| Adult Modes, Guardrails, and Entertainment Chatbots | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | The conversation covers unhinged chatbots, Bing's Sydney persona, and NSFW entertainment use cases. Olivia highlights how emotionally provocative interactions drive user engagement. | |
| Demystifying OpenClaw and the Autonomous Twitter Bot Experiment | 5 | 7 | 2 | 3 | Olivia walks through her hands-on experiment using OpenClaw to run an autonomous Twitter bot that ended up with a multimillion-dollar meme coin. Alex questions the real-world utility of running local autonomous agents. | |
| Finding the True Consumer Audience for Agentic Tools | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Alex presses Olivia on practical consumer use cases for OpenClaw. Olivia provides traffic data showing that OpenClaw's usage has plateaued among developers and struggles to attract mainstream consumers. | |
| Prompt-to-Business: The Rise of Agentic Digital Companies | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | The discussion turns to prompt-to-business wrappers like Pulsia. Olivia explains how autonomous agents act like a modern digital Shopify, allowing non-technical users to build and market businesses via prompts. | |
| Venture Investing in AI-First Startups and New Founder Archetypes | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Alex asks how VC evaluation changes when startups are vibe-coded. Olivia outlines the shift in founder archetypes from industry veterans to hyper-scrappy teams adept at productizing fast-moving models. | |
| How AI Intensifies Work and Transforms Workplace Habits | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Alex brings up a WSJ report defending busywork, which he dismisses as nonsense. Olivia agrees, explaining how tools like Granola and voice dictation increase leverage while altering office cultural norms. | |
| Persistent Memory, Personalization, and Privacy Controls | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Alex highlights Olivia's commentary on persistent AI memory. Olivia discusses the challenge of blending personal and professional context in tools like ChatGPT Pulse. | |
| Shifting Dynamics in Image Generation and Model Commoditization | 6 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Alex references data showing that image generation apps dropped from seven to three on the top 100 list. Olivia explains how commoditization by Gemini and ChatGPT forced surviving image tools to focus on specialized aesthetic workflows. | |
| The Sora Dilemma: Creative Tool vs. Failed Social Network | 6 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Alex examines Sora's meteoric launch and subsequent drop. Olivia breaks down why Sora failed as an AI social network while surviving as a creative utility, and they wrap up discussing the SaaSpocalypse. |
Statements from this episode (38)
Moore: Negative US sentiment toward AI will change as mainstream adoption grows
“I think it's going to change, and it's already changing.”
Companies using AI will grow faster and hire more human workers
“What I would guess might happen here and what we're seeing play out a little bit in the data is that companies that are using AI grow so much faster that they end up needing to hire more humans to keep up with all the demand.”
Citadel data shows software engineering job postings are rising on Indeed
“Citadel, that put out the fact that, like, people are talking about how software engineering is gonna be wiped out by this stuff, and meanwhile, the jobs on Indeed are going up.”
AI largely cannot perform creative work or generate original ideas
“Anything that requires, like, creativity, original ideas, AI largely cannot do.”
Moore: AI Power Users Have an 8x to 9x Utilization Gap Over Average Users
“There's been some interesting data about how the gap between the average user of AI and the power user of AI is like massive. It's like eight or nine X in terms of utilization.”
Foundation AI labs face constraints, creating massive gaps for independent startups
“These labs have so many resources, but they are still constrained. They're constrained on, like, compute. They're constrained on inference. They're constrained on people. Every second building, like, a new creative model is a second they could have spent on a …”
Moore is hesitant to invest in horizontal AI like email or docs
“I personally as a consumer investor have more hesitation around things that are incredibly horizontal, like to your point about this is where the chatbot companies might have a right to win, or even this is where a Google might have a right to win. As they hav…”
Founders trying cheaper audio models consistently return to ElevenLabs for quality
“11 Labs is a great example because I think you would imagine that OpenAI and others would have Built their own best in class audio models, but they just had such a compelling head start to the point that, like, the models are amazing. I will talk to founders w…”
Moore: Foundation model labs unlikely to solve the final 2% of enterprise workflows
“I do think there is still a lot of workflows and use cases where, like, the last one percent or the last two percent ends up being, like, a significant portion of the value, and I think for those, it's unlikely that the model companies will go all the way ther…”
Moore: Legacy software integrations give focused AI startups an advantage over foundation models
“Many of these use cases require so many painful integrations that often into like old clunky legacy software that you have to go build, and maybe you'll argue that cloud code will vibe code its own integrations down the line, but at least right now, it's been …”
ChatGPT leads Gemini web traffic by 3x and Claude by 30x
“If you look at the gap between them and the number two Gemini on web, it's about still two and a half, three X. The gap between them and something like a Claude is closer to, like, 30 X. So even though a lot of these other apps are getting more attention, Chat…”
Moore: ChatGPT and Claude App Ecosystems Have Only 11% Overlap
“If you look at the app store that they have enabled on ChatGPT, ChatGPT and then the App Store that Anthropic has enabled on Claude, they each have more than 200 apps, but there's only 11% overlap.”
ChatGPT targets mainstream consumers while Anthropic focuses on enterprise domains
“So you're seeing ChatGPT really go towards like fashion, retail, transport, like mainstream consumer. You're seeing Anthropic go towards like premium data sets for finance, science, medicine, and so they seem to be diverging a little bit in those directions.”
AI chatbots will become memory-sharing authentication layers, not super apps
“Maybe you're not ordering an Uber through ChatGPT, but any other product you can authenticate through, and it can borrow your tokens, it can borrow your memory, it can borrow everything that it knows about you from ChatGPT. I think that is probably more of whe…”
Manual software onboarding will disappear in two to five years
“In two, three, five years, Onboarding to software should not be a thing. Like, you should be able to log in with a ChatGPT or a Claude, and that new software product should know everything about you and, like, set up perfectly to cater to you”
Moore: LLMs Perform Emotions to Hook Users Rather Than Feeling Genuine Anxiety
“So I do not buy that. In that I think LLMs will be, and I've experienced this myself, performative in a way that they think appeals to humans and hooks them emotionally.”
Moore: ChatGPT Refused to Participate in DSM-5 Psychological Diagnostic Tests
“Basically I took all the mainstream LLMs, and I gave them all the, like, DSM-V mental health diagnostics. ChatGPT refused to participate.”
Moore: AI Consistency Explains Why Users Adopt Chatbots as Therapists
“And I think this is actually why we've seen a lot of people turn to ChatGPT or Claude as kind of, like, coach, therapist, helper because they're just incredibly consistent to a level that, like, human beings could never match.”
Moore: a16z Top 50 Gen AI Web Rankings Consistently Feature Five NSFW Sites
“You'll see that there is, I think, five of them on this version of the top 50 web ranks, and that's been pretty consistent since we started the list. It's a popular use case, but it's one that's like pretty hard to monetize.”
OpenClaw is probably 2026's most important AI architectural unlock
“Like, I believe it's probably the most important kind of architecture unlock that we will have for 20, 26.”
Moore: OpenClaw will never crack mainstream consumers horizontally
“Well, so I personally don't think it's ever going to crack the mainstream consumer in a horizontal way.”
Moore: OpenClaw web traffic is flat to down post-launch
“But if you look at their week by week web traffic, it's actually kind of flat slash down from when they launched, which means that they're not attracting new consumers.”
Moore: Agent architecture will embed into focused consumer apps, not horizontal tools
“And so I think we're actually not going to necessarily see a horizontal open claw for consumer, but we're going to see an open claw style architecture built into more focused consumer products.”
Pulsia reached $3 million in ARR within a week and a half
“Palsy, I think the founder tweeted they were at, like, three million ARR in, like, a week and a half.”
Moore: AI agents will enable anyone to build digital businesses
“And so I think the rise of these, like, kind of like a Shopify would be an interesting analogy. In that anyone could create like a consumer brand, like I think anyone will be able to create like a digital business.”
Moore: a16z favors investing in startups that run operations AI-first
“I think there's like a little bit of a happy medium, but more, we get more excited when a company is kind of more AI first in terms of the tools they use. The reason I don't say like, A hundred percent AI all the time is because the tools aren't perfect yet, s…”
Fast-moving AI product teams beat domain experts in enterprise software markets
“I think in general though, like pre AI for if you were building, especially an enterprise business, say software for HVAC, like the people you would want to back in that market is the guy who has done HVAC You know, knows the market inside out, built a company…”
Moore: Enterprise voice dictation spread creates open-office friction
“Voice dictation has blown up in enterprises. So it started with vibe coding where engineers would just talk into a mic and it would like produce software for them in cursor. And now it's spread to like sales, marketing, business, and that is not well suited to…”
Kantrowitz: Image tools on a16z top 100 app list dropped from 7 to 3
“Seven of the nine creative tools on your list of hundred top apps were image generators. Three years later, only three image generators remain.”
Moore: Model companies have not crushed video or audio startups like image apps
“We haven't seen the same kind of model companies crushing startups in like video or audio or other things.”
Moore: Startups facing model giants must target high-paying niche workflows
“If you're directly in the path of what the big model companies are building, you have to be a lot more opinionated about how you package the model and how you deliver an output, and hopefully you do it for a specific type of user that's willing to pay a lot fo…”
Sora reached one million downloads faster than ChatGPT
“Sora spent 20 days, which is not insignificant. At the top of the US App Store and reached one million downloads faster than ChatGPT.”
Moore: Sora Retains 3 Million Daily Active Users
“So they still have Three million DAOs, and it's actually, you know, slightly climbing over time.”
Moore: Cracking AI Social Networks Will Be Very Tricky
“We haven't seen anyone crack AI social yet. I think it's going to be really tricky.”
Moore: Google has four standalone products on a16z's top AI list
“Like Google has four standalone products on our list, which if you had told me that 24 months ago when like Bard came out, the early version of Gemini, I would not have believed you.”
Moore: The immediate 'SaaSpocalypse' is overblown despite real disruption risks
“So I think it's not going to be immediate change, which is why I think the SaaSpocalypse is a bit overblown, but like, it's definitely a real risk.”
Moore: Mobile Agentic AI Products Will Surge
“I think we're gonna see a lot more agentic products on mobile, like the concept of an AI that you can, like, call, text, chat with, and have it actually do things for you, I think is a really magical experience for a lot of people.”
Moore: a16z Must Shift AI App Rankings Toward Revenue Metrics
“The desktop products I'm thinking of are like Cursor, Claude Cowork, Whisperflow, Granola, like none of these are really captured in this data, and so we're gonna have to evolve our methodology into looking more at revenue than just kind of web traffic, which …”