Bessemer Venture Partners recently released their State of AI 2025 Report, a space exploration manual for the AI software era. With AI now the dominant software force, let's dive into what Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike took away from the report in today's episode:

• The key differences in performance metrics between AI Supernovas and Shooting Stars
• Why Vertical AI companies have a unique opportunity to outperform horizontal AI companies in the early days
• The importance of building a structured Proof of Concept or Pilot program into your customer acquisition process
• The top 5 predictions for the AI market in 2026
• Top 10 takeaways for Native-AI founders and executive leaders

The top five predictions from the report for AI in 2026 include:

1. The browser will emerge as a dominant interface for agentic AI
2. 2026 will be the year of generative video
3. Evaluations and data lineage will become a critical catalyst for AI product development
4. A new AI-native social media giant could emerge
5. The incumbents strike back as AI M&A heats up

For the best listening experience, open the Bessemer Venture Partners State of AI 2025 report and follow along as Dave and Ray discuss the highlights.

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Aventis Advisors recently published a report on AI Valuations which covered the number of investments, size of those investments, median valuations and multiples on AI investments over a 15 year period from 2010 through first half of 2025!

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss some of the highlights including:

• AI industry categories included
• Number of financing rounds (2010 - 1H2025)
• Total Capital Raised (2010 - 1H2025)
• Median sizes by round (2010 - 1H2025)
• Valuations (2010 - 1H2025)
• Valuation multiples (2010 - 1H2025)
• Large Language Model valuations vs AI Coding Assistant Valuations
• Summary of the AI funding environment

You can follow along to Dave and Ray's conversation by clicking the below link to the report

Aventis AI Valuation Multiples Report

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AI-Native products and AI products integrated into a traditional SaaS platform have different Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) than a SaaS platform, which directly impacts Gross Margin. With over 80% of SaaS companies already integrating AI products into their platform, the Metrics Brothers knew it was time to discuss the Gross Margin and Cost of Goods Sold considerations of deploying an AI product:

Topics that CAC and Growth discuss during this episode includes:

• Gross Margin benchmarks for AI products versus SaaS platforms
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for SaaS products
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for AI products
• General Rules for COGS vs OPEX categorization
• Increasing AI product Gross Margins with scale
• The cascading reality of AI investments and build-outs

If you are considering investing capital and resources into an AI product, be it in an AI-Native product or as an add-on to a legacy SaaS platform, this conversation between CAC and Growth provides multiple insights and considerations for many Cost of Goods Sold components for AI products vis-à-vis traditional SaaS products.

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