100 Years of Progress in 100 Days: Sequoia AI Ascent 2026 Keynote
In a Nutshell
Sequoia AI Ascent 2026 keynote declares AI as the biggest, fastest tech wave yet—shifting from communication revolutions (internet/cloud/mobile) to computation (agents achieving functional AGI via ChatGPT, o1 reasoning, and long-horizon models like Claude Code/Nopus), enabling 10-40x productivity and $10T services markets replacing software. Builders should adopt MAD strategy (customer-back Modes, intuitive Affordance, rapid Diffusion) amid exploding agent capabilities for coding, medicine, law, and more, compressing 100 years of progress into 100 days. Physical work is 99% mechanized; cognitive work follows suit via neural nets, birthing alien designs, emerging AI sciences like thermodynamics, and human art/forms of unreason that prioritize relationships over commoditized labor.
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Thank you all for being here. We do this as a service to the community because we are living through important times and it's an honor to serve as a gathering place. This is the best agenda and best set of attendees. Thank you for being here today despite being busy.
We have an exceptional agenda. Sonia, Constantine, and I will say a few words to start. We have the privilege of being in many conversations with interesting people, so once a year we synthesize and share what we've been hearing.
Zoom out to silicon-based transistors that gave this area its name, built into systems connected by networks, public as the internet, supporting applications like social media in the cloud, on mobile devices in our pockets, today capable of AI that is indistinguishable from magic.
All waves are additive. We needed decades of evolution for compute, bandwidth, data, talent to make the most of this moment.
This AI wave is different in three ways:
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Biggest wave yet, specifically the first that is both software and services. Top row: first 15 years of cloud transition, TAM for software from $350B to $650B, cloud grew to $400B of that. Bottom row: new services revenue, ~$10T (could be $5T or $50T). Legal services in US alone is $400B market—one vertical, one geo, same as all of software. Opportunity is immense.
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Fastest wave yet. White space on AI side filling fast. Logos are companies that hit $1B+ revenue from cloud, mobile, AI shifts. More coming soon at current pace.
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