Vanessa Larco\u2060,\u00a0partner at\u00a0\u2060Premise\u2060\u00a0and former partner at NEA, thinks 2026 will finally be the year of consumer AI.\u00a0
\nLarco,\u00a0who’s\u00a0been investing in consumer and\u00a0prosumer\u00a0for years, thinks\u00a0we’re\u00a0about to see\u00a0a shift in how consumers spend time online, with AI powering \u201cconcierge-like\u201d services. The question is, will legacy consumer products like WebMD and TripAdvisor continue to exist as standalone apps,\u00a0or will they just get absorbed into ChatGPT or Meta AI? And where can startups carve out an AI-powered niche for\u00a0themselves?\u00a0
\nToday on TechCrunch’s\u00a0\u2060Equity\u2060\u00a0podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Larco to talk about why consumer is back, what OpenAI\u00a0won’t\u00a0kill, and where the real opportunities are hiding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapters:
\n00:00 – Introduction\u00a0\u00a0
\n00:53 – Why founders are excited about consumer again\u00a0\u00a0
\n04:40 – The moat against OpenAI: Managing real humans\u00a0\u00a0
\n09:22 – Apps as disposable as Word docs\u00a0\u00a0
\n12:48 – Social media in the AI era\u00a0
\n18:48 – Meta Ray-Bans and why wearables are\u00a0actually good\u00a0\u00a0
\n23:35 – Stablecoins and consumer fintech opportunities\u00a0\u00a0
\n26:54 – M&A predictions for 2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Subscribe to Equity on\u00a0\u2060YouTube\u2060,\u2060\u00a0Apple Podcasts\u2060,\u2060\u00a0Overcast\u2060,\u2060\u00a0Spotify\u2060\u00a0and all the casts. You\u00a0also can\u00a0follow Equity on\u2060\u00a0X\u2060\u00a0and\u2060\u00a0Threads\u2060, at @EquityPod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vanessa Larco\u2060,\u00a0partner at\u00a0\u2060Premise\u2060\u00a0and former partner at NEA, thinks 2026 will finally be the year of consumer AI.\u00a0 Larco,\u00a0who’s\u00a0been investing in consumer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheblog.top\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}