Startups Can Still Find AI Opportunities Despite Big Tech Dominance

Most opportunity for startups lies in building industry-specific AI applications rather than generalized tools. Speed and agility can help startups capture market share.

Incumbents like Datadog building AI infrastructure could limit startup opportunities in the short term, but history shows startups can still disrupt with innovative solutions.

Large tech companies' services leave room for startups in finding novel solutions and defining new categories, though large players have inherent data/talent advantages.

Startups can build defensible industry-specific AI by collecting proprietary data, sophisticated applications, and ensuring accuracy.

Startups should expect high desire but uneven AI expertise among enterprise customers. Usage-based pricing unlikely to disappear due to costs of large models.