The AI mania is sweeping into startups, reshaping what employees can do and how teams are built.
In a new report compiled with fintech Mercury, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz says the shift is hitting small firms harder than large incumbents, as AI-native companies emerge with new structures built around next-generation software.
“AI is changing what skills people have, what tasks people do, and what teams look like.”
The venture firm analyzed financial data from over 200,000 Mercury customers between June and August, ranking the top 50 AI-native application layer companies by spend. Unlike infrastructure providers, which reflect capacity, these startups reveal where money is flowing into products and workflows.
The results highlight a surge in horizontal tools that anyone inside a company can use, regardless of role. Creative platforms and “vibe coding” apps, once confined to marketers, designers, or engineers, are now spreading across entire organizations.
“AI has opened up applications in these categories that can be (and are) used by people in any role. We’re seeing this in a few categories, where typically domain-specific tools are becoming more horizontal.
Creative tools are represented by ten names on the list, ranking as the largest single category. The leader is the all-in-one suite Freepik (#4), followed by the text-to-speech generator ElevenLabs (#5). Image and video had the most applications in the ranks – with Canva, Photoroom, Midjourney, Descript, Opus Clip, and CapCut, respectively. But, avatars are also emerging with #47 Arcads (primarily used for advertisements), and #50 Tavus (multi-purpose).”
Vertical applications also made the ranks, focused on industries such as law, sales, and HR. Andreessen Horowitz says vertical AI “can supercharge human employees in their roles” by trimming the most mundane and repetitive tasks.
The firm also notes that vertical apps “can reduce or remove” teams, but it is mostly seeing evidence of AI augmenting employees.
“Of the seventeen vertical application companies, 12 focus on supercharging humans – while five aim to serve as ‘AI employees’ that complete workflows end-to-end. The latter includes #27 Crosby Legal (agentic law firm), #34 Cognition (AI engineer), #37 11x (automated GTM employees), #39 Serval (AI IT service desk), and #42 Alma (AI-powered immigration law services).”
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