Silicon Valley - The Epicenter Of Artificial Intelligence Innovation

Over 40+ years of researching the tech world, I have witnessed Silicon Valley as the epicenter of many world-changing technologies.

The first major technology that put Silicon Valley on the map was the invention of the transistor. Although it was created at Bell Labs, one of its creators was William Shockley who moved to Palo Alto where he founded Shockley Semiconductor Labs in 1956. One of his chief engineers was Intel Founder Gordon Moore who co-founded Intel in 1968. The emergence of the personal computer is closely tied to the groundbreaking efforts of Silicon Valley firms like Apple and Intel, which helped launch the PC industry. Additionally, the revolutionary Netscape Navigator web browser emerged from this region, paving the way for our modern digital landscape.

In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone and launched the handheld PC market. In 2010, Apple introduced the iPad, and the tablet market took off. Then, the Apple Watch was next, and the wrist computer was born.

More recently, OpenAI, based in San Francisco, CA, has introduced Generative AI, which, along with related technologies, is putting Silicon Valley back at the epicenter.

However, the common denominator for these world-changing technologies is that Silicon Valley has the largest concentration of venture capitalists. Numerous venture capital firms were established and managed by technology entrepreneurs who made millions of dollars from their successful tech enterprises that ultimately went public.

Most local VC companies are tech-savvy, they know how the market works, and are inclined to invest in innovative technologies that show potential for success. Indeed, they are willing to risk capital to back tech companies, hoping to go public and increase their collective wealth. At the heart of their investing strategy is to look for breakthrough technologies and companies that can provide apps and services to support the technology in which they invest.

For example, when the internet browser came out, its success was due to the types of apps and services that could utilize the internet. This caused the dot-com craze in the late 1990s, which ended in a bust. However, hundreds of companies with visionary leaders and, in most cases, VC backing began to emerge. Companies like Uber, Paypal, Facebook, etc. put meat on those internet bones, changed how we pay for things, and gave us the ride-sharing industry and social networks.

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The key for VCs and tech investors alike is to look for game-changing technologies and invest in the apps and services that will drive the next big thing to change our world.

Last week, I spent some time at GPTDAO's excellent Generative AI Summit Silicon Valley, the largest AI conference to date. The speakers' list included VCs, successful AI entrepreneurs, AI software executives, and others who shared their work and how they see our AI future. But one particular session was highly enlightening from VC Jeremiah Owyang of Blitzscaling Ventures.

He laid out his investment strategy and made a strong case for AI agents' role in the future of AI. Mr. Owyang believes that AI agents will be everywhere and do our bidding, whether it be shopping, learning, searching, or performing many of the functions we do ourselves today.

His summary slides shared these insights-

-Plot your path: AI Agent Ecosystem: know the data layer, management layer, app layer, and ecosystem layer

-Humans increase productivity via Agents: AI agents will handle tasks, freeing humans to focus on higher-value work

-New AI Agent colleagues emerge in the workforce: Virtual colleagues, collaborating with humans to execute tasks

-Your company will interact with customer AI Agents: We'll be dealing with AI agents acting on behalf of customers

- Agent-run organizations will be your customer/competitor

-Fully autonomous, agent-run entities may someday become both your customers and your competitors

He graciously shared this link to his slides, and whether you are interested in investing in AI or want to look closely at his AI future casting, his slides can be educational.

One consumer example of Agents for shopping is the new Rufus AI agent on Amazon's main page. These are loosely called bots but are agents, and Rufus is Amazon's shopping agent.

Mr. Owyang makes another important prediction; He believes multi-agents will be everywhere-

One data point that underscores Silicon Valley's role in AI is the over 100 AI-focused events, pitch meetings, and get-togethers held each month. Hundreds of AI start-ups make the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to seek funding or support from many of the region's successful AI companies.

While there is much AI research and development worldwide, Silicon Valley has again emerged as the epicenter of the next big thing in tech. It is poised once more to provide capital, especially for promising start-ups, just like Paypal, Uber, and Facebook did at the birth of the Internet age.

Disclosure: Apple subscribes to Creative Strategies research reports along with many other high tech companies around the world.