Welcome to Ai decoded, Fast company‘S weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of ai. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Coming Soon: The One-Person, Billion-Dollar Startup
We’re beginning to see a new kind of lean startup company, enabled in large part by new ai agents. Since these companies related far less on people power, some of them-them-ons addressing real market needs-and achieving extraving extractor-ravenue-ravenue-ravenue-ravenue-commone numbers.
AI Coding tools BCOME MAJOR Enablers of these lightly staffed AI Startups, Simply BeCause Thei’re Starting to Automate Software Development Tasks that oncree Engineer. The makers of these coding tools provide early examples of such startups.
“We areeing the Rise of the ‘AI-FIRST Company,’ Where Tech Companies use ai and agents to complete tasks before hiring employees,” Says jeremiah Owyang, General Partner at BLITZSCALING VANTERS.
A few notable examples:
- Anysphere, the company behind the cursor ai coding tool, has only about 20 employees. By the end of 2024, its annual recurring revenue (Arr) Had Reached $ 100 Million – Roughly $ 5 Million per Employe. Now, Techcrunch Reports that its Arr has surged to $ 300 million in 2025, bringing its per-com-employe revival to $ 15 million. (Anysphere was named one of Fast company‘S Most Innovative Companies in the Applied AI Category.) The company has reportedly turned down several buyout offers, involuding one from openai, to remain independent.
- Another Ai Coding tool Maker, Windsurf (Formerly Known as Codeium) Has Reached $ 40 Million in ARR, UP from $ 12 Million at the End of 2024. With 170 Empolyes, Revenue-P-Employe Figure of Approximately $ 235,000. Openai is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire windsurf for Around $ 3 billion, or about $ 17 million per employee.
- A South Korean Startup Called Nari Labs, With Just Two Employees, Recently Unveiled A New Text-To-Speech Model Called Dia That May Outper Category Leaders Elevenlabs and Sesame in Terms of Terms of Terms of Voice authenticity. Voice Samples Posted to X by the company to support this claim. Nari Labs has Shared Its Model on Github and Could Potentially Build a Business Around Licensing Future Models. The company did not immediatively respond to a request for comment on tuesday.
- Midjourney, The Creator of the Well-Known Text-to-Image Ai Tool, Has Kept a Lean Profile, with only about 10 employees. Pitchbook Estimates that by the end of 2024, the company was generating approximately $ 200 million in annual recurring revival -jaround $ 20 million per employee.
- A Lesser-Known Ai Company, Nexad, Which Develops and Deploys Ai-NATIVE ADVERTIRTISING Within Ai Applications, Has Just Six Employees But Has Alredy Reached 30 Milllion Users CHATS CHAT SAPP Partnerships. Founded in 2024, The Startup has secured $ 6 million in seed funding in a round co-also by andressen horowitz’s Speedrun Accelerator and Prosus Ventures.
“This trend will only continue as companies realize they can gain efficiencies by using software for repeatable tasks,” Says BlitzScaling Ventures’ Owyang, “What Reserving Human Talent For Strategy, Innovation, Creativity, Leadership, and Community. “
These AI-FIRST Companies are making more viable as ai models improve. The generative ai boom began with models that could string words togeether in useful ways, but only recently have models gained the ability to “reason” independent and work third proyseses Autonomy and Agency.
The place where this ability is having the greenstat impact today is in ai coding assistants, but many expect ai “agents” to take over other tasks, like invoicing, like invoicing and customer support, that will berlerly Province of humans. In the future, when company a Wants to buy from company b, it would be a matter of two ai agents work together to open the business relationship.
Openai Ceo Sam Altman Speculated in Early 2024 that beCause of AI Agents, A Billion-Doller Company Employing One Individual Might Be Created. In Fact, Altman said he has a running bet with some of his peers on when such a unicorn might appear. That day might be coming sooner than we think.
It might even go further than altman envisions, Owyang Says: ” Agents, with no clear indication of whether any humans are at the helm. “
Why Openai Buying Chrome Cold Face Antitrust Headwinds
A Federal Court Rules Last August that Google Holds a monopoly on internet search. This week, the court is working to determine a list of remedies to address that Antitrust Issue. Federal Antitrust officials Google earns the majority of its revelation by seling ads around search results and referring users to brands when they search for products.
Depending on the buyer, Selling Chrome Might Fix One Monopoly Only to Create another a fee year down the line. Openai’s Head of Chatgpt, Nick Turley, Testified that his company would be willing to purchase the popular browser, which could fetch fetch as much as much, according to BloombergThat would place the browser in the hands of a company currently building its own internet search business. Openai licenses bing search data and is developing its own search index. The company was reported to license google’s search data -the most complete inventory of the web’s contents – but was denied. The justice department has also proposed requiring Google to License its search index to other search competitions.
“To grow further, Openai needs to move beyond supplying models and start opening the customer connection,” Says info-tech Principal Research Director Brian Jackson. “Gaining Control Over a Major Browser Like Chrome Bold Expand Its Reach and Create New Data Oportunities, What help
Openai is among the first companies to offer an alternative to the classic google search that’s become almost reflexive for many web users. INTEAD OF RETURNING A List of Most Relevant Links, Chatgpt, Perplexity and Other Chatbots Return a Direct Answer to a User’s Question, In Narrave Form (Google has it has been known for ai search forms Overviews). Intead of Doing Searches from Chrome (By Eather Using The URL Bar or Right-Clicking on Search Terms) Window triggered by a keyboard shortcut, is just as easy and often yields more useful results, depending on the type of search. A chatgpt-optimized chrome group provides another Easy Entry Point-One that far more people would likely use. In that Experience You Might Highlight Something in the Browser, Right-Click, and see a “search with chatgpt” menu item where “search with google” used to be.
Of course, that would create a Major Advantage for Openai in search, who other ai search provides such as Google, Perplexity, and Anthropic Cold be put at a disadvantage. If ai search continues to grow in popularity, there’s a real chance that it becomes the dominant way of searching the web at some point in the future. Does that make openai the next “search giant”?
I’M Excted About Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, Both because of his style (they’re not bulky or awkward), and their potential to integrate ai features. Meta has chowt a great feature to lead with: on Wednsday, The Company Began Rolling out its “Live Translation” Capability to Smart Glasses users in all markets. (The feature was first teased back in October.)
In effect, people will be able to travel abroad and hold reasonally smooth-f occasionally clunky – Conversions with speakers of different languages. When the microphones on the glasses hear a different language, the words are sent to an ai server in the cloud, which then sends the translated words back down and thought the glasses’ earphones. And, in a nod to on-device ai, meta allows users to download language packs directly to the glasses, enabling offline translation without a network connection. For now, live translation supports English, French, Italian, and Spanish, with more languages on the way.
Meta also seemed to move up the timeline for another ai feature – Live Ai, In which the AI Continuously Watches the live View from the device’s camaras in order to assist the user in thaings thei may be doing. If it sees food preparation, The Meta Assistant Might Offer Recipes from the Web or Substitutes for Missing ingredients, or if the user is exploring a new nehboring a new Neight Supply MIPPING Features. Meta Now Says Live Ai is “Coming song to general availability in the US and canada.” Live Ai Gives A Feel for How Meeta has Hoped Ai Would Enhance The User Experience in its Smart Glasses.
More Ai Coverage from Fast company:
Want Exclusive Reporting and Trend Analysis on Technology, Business Innovation, Future of Work, And Design? Sign up for Fast company Premium.
The Early-Rate Deadline for Fast Company’s Brands that Matter Awards is this Friday, April 25, at 11:59 PM pt. Apply today.
