The 2026 AI Forecast: Foundation Models, IPOs, and Robotics with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil
episode
No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
40 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What are the key AI predictions for 2026?
Hi listeners, welcome to No Priors. How can we even begin to wrap this year up? The AI field has grown, breaking out into the mainstream and taking center stage with policymakers. Chat GPT shipped massive numbers and asked for massive dollars. Gemini and Google roared back strong. And on the application front, AI coding has shifted to agents and is eating up all of our inference capacity. Doctors are adopting clinical decision support en masse. And in law and customer support, enterprise adoption is accelerating. What's next? On the research front, the race has multiple live players, with open source closing the gap too. A handful of Neo Labs, new research labs, got funded this year, and the narrative is changing.
Ilya is calling it the age of research. People are trying different ideas around diffusion, self-improvement, data efficiency, EQ, large-scale aging collaboration, continual learning, energy transformers. It's more open than it's ever been. Finally, we had a lot of attempts to make AI reach into the real world with renewed optimism around robotics. Next year, those companies are going to start making contact with reality. From a prediction standpoint, personally, I think we're gonna see somebody make a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, trading markets with LLMs next year. It's inevitable. So we're in the second or third inning. Markets are running a little hot and a little volatile. It's hot in the hot tub.
So get into it with me and a lot. Okay, Ala. It's been a year. I
know, hello guys. 2026, baby.
Are you feeling the AGI? Are you feeling AI AI winter in a good way?
I think I'm actually just feeling microplastics. I think I'm now eighty percent microplastics. I'm just increasing my microplastic consumptions. A friend of mine actually launched a new water brand that uh has new microplastics, by the way. It's called loose instead of like glass bottles and also the cap doesn't have plastic.
Does it come with continual testing?
Yeah, that's a good idea. They did actually try to take out all the microplastics. And so they uh I guess bottled water in actual bottles has more microplastics than plastic bottles because of the cap.
Okay.
How are AI and large‑language models being adopted in medicine, law, and other professional fields?
We'll check back in with you in 27 to see if you feel
yeah, but I'm just completely ossified out of plastic. I'm actually really worried about microglastics. What about all the little glass particles? Aren't you worried about that? People talk about microblastics, but not microglastics. They're much more concerned about that.
I don't think those particles end up embedded for you permanently.
Silicon? You're not worried about silicons. I go to the beach, I'm like, oh no, microglastics everywhere.
I'm actually very willing to insert silicon in my body eventually in my
Wow. That was yeah. I'm not gonna say anything. We can keep going.
What's what's happening in AI, Alaud? What are you where where are we and what are you most excited about?
Yeah, I guess for 26, there's a bunch of stuff that I think uh will be interesting that's coming. I think we will, um, I think there's probably four or five things. One is I think people will proclaim yet again that AI is not doing much and it's overhyped and like that MIT report that people were quoting that I thought really didn't matter. And the reality is the technology ways take like 10 years to propagate, and people are getting enormous value out of AI already, and they're gonna get way more out of it in the future. Um, you know, so there's these I And I undoubtedly next year there'll be these overstated but bubble claims as well as um, hey, I actually isn't working that well kind of claims and that happens every technology cycle and we'll just hear it again.
Next year and there'll be pundits and discussions and just a bunch of wasted time on it. So I think that'll happen. I think another prediction for twenty six is the next set of verticals will hit massive scale. I think this year we saw consolidation of coding into a handful of players of. Medical scribing into a handful of players, uh legal into a handful of players, like Harvey and others.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the key AI predictions for 2026?
0:05–2:06
2
How are AI and large‑language models being adopted in medicine, law, and other professional fields?
2:06–6:00
3
What is the outlook for robotics and self‑driving cars in 2026?
6:00–11:24
4
Will startups or incumbent companies win the next wave of robotics and autonomous vehicles?
11:24–17:53
5
How will AI‑focused IPOs and M&A activity evolve in 2026?
17:53–23:26
6
What challenges are slowing consumer AI product innovation and adoption?
23:26–28:18
7
Which emerging foundation‑model research directions could transform scientific discovery?
28:18–40:39
8
What non‑AI trends—such as defense‑tech startups and GLP‑1 peptide therapies—are expected to shape 2026?
40:39–40:44
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
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