{ "source": "Singularity Business Models", "site": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com", "updated": "23 Oct 2026", "models": [ { "name": "Pay per outcome", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/pay-per-outcome", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "The vendor is paid only when the AI agent completes a defined outcome, such as a resolved support ticket.", "companies": [ { "name": "Fin (Intercom)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Fin AI Agent is priced at $0.99 per resolution, with a base plan of $49/month including 50 resolutions and additional resolutions billed per unit", "date": "2026-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://fin.ai/help/en/articles/13975800-fin-pricing-outcomes", "outlet": "Fin (Intercom) Help Center" } ] }, { "name": "Salesforce (Agentforce)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Agentforce launched a Conversations pricing option at $2 USD per conversation, alongside a Flex Credits pay-per-action model at $500 per 100,000 credits (20 credits, i.e. $0.10, per action), effective from May 15, 2025", "date": "2025-05-15", "grade": "A", "source": "https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=004811240&language=en_US&type=1", "outlet": "Salesforce Help" } ] }, { "name": "Sierra", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Sierra states its outcome-based model charges customers only for specific, valuable outcomes (resolved conversations, completed purchases, saved memberships), not for seats or messages", "date": "2024-12-10", "grade": "A", "source": "https://sierra.ai/blog/outcome-based-pricing-for-ai-agents", "outlet": "Sierra" }, { "claim": "Sierra reported surpassing $150M in ARR entering its third year, having reached $100M ARR in seven quarters and its first $50M quarter, with named customers including ADT, Cigna, Gap, Rivian and Sutter Health", "date": "2026-02-06", "grade": "A", "source": "https://sierra.ai/blog/year-two-in-review", "outlet": "Sierra" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Credits for AI work", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/credits-for-ai-work", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Users buy credits or compute units that are consumed by the amount of AI work a task takes, instead of paying per seat.", "companies": [ { "name": "Cursor (Anysphere)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Cursor surpassed $2 billion in annualized revenue, per a Bloomberg source, having doubled its revenue run rate over the prior three months (up from $1B ARR in late November 2025 and $500M ARR in June 2025).", "date": "2026-03-02", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/cursor-has-reportedly-surpassed-2b-in-annualized-revenue/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "Cognition (Devin)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Devin's own documentation confirms Enterprise customers are billed in ACUs at a rate set per order form, without a public dollar rate", "date": "2026", "grade": "A", "source": "https://docs.devin.ai/admin/billing", "outlet": "Cognition (Devin Docs)" } ] }, { "name": "Lovable", "country": "Sweden", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Lovable describes itself as building software \"from the heart of Stockholm\"", "date": "2025-01-21", "grade": "A", "source": "https://lovable.dev/blog/2025-01-21-how-lovable-is-redefining-software-creation-from-the-heart-of-stockholm", "outlet": "Lovable" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Tokens as the unit of sale", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/tokens-as-the-unit-of-sale", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Model providers sell intelligence by the token, so revenue rises directly with usage.", "companies": [ { "name": "Anthropic", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate reportedly reached $65 billion as of end of July 2026, a sevenfold increase from end of 2025, with Q2 2026 revenue over $11.5 billion (14x year over year)", "date": "2026-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.axios.com/2026/08/17/anthropic-revenue-run-rate-ipo-openai", "outlet": "Axios" } ] }, { "name": "OpenAI", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenAI's revenue run rate was reported at $40 billion as of mid-2026, per OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, though Axios notes the two companies may not measure revenue run rate the same way", "date": "2026-08", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.axios.com/2026/08/17/anthropic-revenue-run-rate-ipo-openai", "outlet": "Axios" } ] }, { "name": "Alibaba Cloud (Qwen)", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Alibaba Cloud's Model Studio prices its flagship Qwen3.8-Max model (Singapore region) at $2.00 per million input tokens and $6.00 per million output tokens, on a pay-as-you-go basis, as of the page's last update", "date": "2026-09-24", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/model-pricing", "outlet": "Alibaba Cloud" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Vertical AI priced by the work", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/vertical-ai-priced-by-the-work", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "AI built for one profession is sold on the volume of professional work it produces (cases, matters, documents), not on the number of users.", "companies": [ { "name": "EvenUp", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "EvenUp raised a $150 million Series E led by Bessemer Venture Partners at a valuation over $2 billion, with total capital raised of $385 million and its platform processing approximately 10,000 personal-injury cases per week", "date": "2025-10-07", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.evenuplaw.com/blog/evenup-2b-valuation/", "outlet": "EvenUp company blog" } ] }, { "name": "Harvey", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Harvey raised $200 million in a funding round co-led by GIC and Sequoia, valuing the company at $11 billion.", "date": "2026-03-25", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.harvey.ai/blog/harvey-raises-at-dollar11-billion-valuation-to-scale-agents-across-law-firms-and-enterprises", "outlet": "Harvey (company blog)" } ] }, { "name": "Legora", "country": "Sweden", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Legora surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, less than 18 months after its platform launched in October 2024, serving over 1,000 customers across 50 markets.", "date": "2026-04-02", "grade": "A", "source": "https://legora.com/newsroom/legal-teams-adoption-of-ai-propels-legora-past-100-million-in-annual-recurring-revenue", "outlet": "Legora (company newsroom)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Discovery paid by milestone", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/discovery-paid-by-milestone", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "An AI drug discovery platform earns upfront fees plus payments released as each research milestone is hit.", "companies": [ { "name": "Isomorphic Labs", "country": "United Kingdom", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Deals with Eli Lilly ($45M upfront, up to $1.7B in milestones) and Novartis ($37.5M upfront, up to $1.2B in milestones), combined potential value about $3B", "date": "2024-01-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://endpoints.news/alphabets-ai-unit-isomorphic-inks-drug-discovery-deals-with-eli-lilly-novartis-for-up-to-3b/", "outlet": "Endpoints News" } ] }, { "name": "Recursion Pharmaceuticals", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Received a $4M milestone payment from Sanofi in February 2026 (fifth progress-based milestone), bringing cumulative upfront and milestone payments from that partnership to $134M; potential for up to 15 AI-designed small molecule programs", "date": "2026-02-25", "grade": "A", "source": "https://ir.recursion.com/news-releases/news-release-details/recursion-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-financial", "outlet": "Recursion Pharmaceuticals IR" }, { "claim": "Received $213M cumulative upfront and milestone payments from Roche/Genentech collaboration, including a $30M milestone accepted in October 2025 for the second Phenomap", "date": "2026-02-25", "grade": "A", "source": "https://ir.recursion.com/news-releases/news-release-details/recursion-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-financial", "outlet": "Recursion Pharmaceuticals IR" } ] }, { "name": "Insilico Medicine", "country": "Hong Kong / China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "2025 total revenue of US$56.24M; over 10 new multinational pharma collaborations signed in 2025 totaling US$1.3B, taking cumulative collaboration value to US$4.6B; listed on Hong Kong Main Board 2025-12-30 in what was described as Hong Kong's largest biotech IPO of the year", "date": "2026-03-29", "grade": "A", "source": "https://insilico.com/news/ohz9ozx0t1-insilico-medicine-announces-2025-annual", "outlet": "Insilico Medicine" } ] }, { "name": "Xaira Therapeutics", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised $1.3B to date; as of a July 2026 profile, has no publicly announced revenue-generating pharma partnerships and is only now (since hiring a business-development SVP in March 2026) starting to seek data-partnership deals, not capital", "date": "2026-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.biospace.com/business/secretive-ai-drug-hunter-xaira-dips-toe-into-dealmaking-with-hunt-for-partners", "outlet": "BioSpace" } ] } ] }, { "name": "AI roll-ups of services firms", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ai-roll-ups-of-services-firms", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Investors buy traditional services firms (accounting, travel management) and rebuild how they operate around AI.", "companies": [ { "name": "Long Lake Management (General Catalyst's Long Lake, backing an AI platform called Nexus)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Long Lake (General Catalyst's roll-up vehicle) agreed to take American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) private for $6.3 billion; Amex GBT generated $2.7 billion revenue in 2025", "date": "2026-05-06", "grade": "B", "source": "https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/general-catalysts-6-3b-amex-deal-puts-its-ai-roll-up-strategy-on-display", "outlet": "PitchBook" }, { "claim": "Long Lake has acquired roughly 30 businesses since its 2023 founding under the roll-up-and-modernize-with-AI playbook", "date": "2026-05-06", "grade": "B", "source": "https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/general-catalysts-6-3b-amex-deal-puts-its-ai-roll-up-strategy-on-display", "outlet": "PitchBook" } ] }, { "name": "Thrive Holdings", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Thrive Holdings is committing $1 billion to acquire local, brick-and-mortar accounting practices, having already acquired nearly 50 local firms over two years, and deployed a Tax AI platform reported up to 98% accurate on data entry with about 31% time savings for accountants", "date": "2026-06-02", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/06/02/thrive-holdings-to-bet-1-billion-on-ai-powered-accounting-roll-up/", "outlet": "Forbes" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Engineers deployed with the software", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/engineers-deployed-with-the-software", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "3", "rung_name": "Compounds", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "The vendor embeds its own engineers inside the customer to build on its platform, trading software margin for depth and lock-in.", "companies": [ { "name": "Palantir Technologies", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Palantir reported Q2 2026 total revenue of $1.94 billion, up 93% year over year, with US commercial revenue up 149% year over year to $764 million, and raised FY2026 guidance to 82% YoY total growth and 134% YoY US commercial growth", "date": "2026-08-04", "grade": "B", "source": "https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/palantir-q2-2026-earnings-revenue-111006525.html", "outlet": "Yahoo Finance (reporting company earnings release)" } ] }, { "name": "OpenAI (OpenAI Deployment Company)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenAI launched the OpenAI Deployment Company on 2026-05-11 with over $4 billion in initial investment, bringing in about 150 engineers via its acquisition of AI consulting firm Tomoro, and partnering with 19 investment/consulting firms (including TPG, Bain Capital, and McKinsey) to embed forward-deployed engineers in client organizations", "date": "2026-05-11", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openai.com/index/openai-launches-the-deployment-company/", "outlet": "OpenAI" } ] } ] }, { "name": "The ambient scribe", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/the-ambient-scribe", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "AI listens to the clinical conversation and writes the note, sold per clinician.", "companies": [ { "name": "Abridge", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Abridge closed a $300 million Series E led by Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, valuing the company at $5.3 billion, four months after its $250 million Series D.", "date": "2025-06-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/ambient-ai-startup-abridge-scores-300m-series-e-backed-a16z-and-khosla", "outlet": "Fierce Healthcare" } ] }, { "name": "Heidi Health", "country": "Australia", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Heidi Health raised a $480 million (US$340 million) Series C at a $1.27 billion (US$900 million) valuation, with revenue of $71 million (up from $1.4 million two years prior) and use across 175 million+ patient encounters and 190 countries", "date": "2026-09-25", "grade": "B", "source": "https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/australia-s-heidi-plans-gp-ai-agents-nears-unicorn-status.html", "outlet": "Information Age (ACS)" } ] }, { "name": "Microsoft Dragon Copilot", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "More than 100,000 clinicians rely on Dragon Copilot as part of their daily practice, supporting care for millions of patients every month.", "date": "2026-03-05", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-cloud/blog/healthcare/2026/03/05/unify-simplify-scale-microsoft-dragon-copilot-meets-the-moment-at-himss-2026/", "outlet": "Microsoft (company blog, HIMSS 2026)" } ] }, { "name": "Nabla", "country": "France", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Nabla raised $70 million in Series C funding, led by HV Capital with Highland Europe, DST Global, Cathay Innovation and Tony Fadell's Build Collective participating, bringing total funding to $120 million.", "date": "2025-06-17", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.nabla.com/press-release/nabla-raises-70m-series-c-to-deliver-agentic-ai-to-the-heart-of-clinical-workflows-bringing-total-funding-to-120m", "outlet": "Nabla (company press release)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "The tiny-team company", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/the-tiny-team-company", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "3", "rung_name": "Compounds", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "self-improving", "line": "AI-native companies reach hundreds of millions in revenue with a small fraction of the staff earlier software companies needed.", "companies": [ { "name": "Lovable", "country": "Sweden", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Lovable reached $400 million ARR in February 2026 with 146 full-time employees, having added $100 million ARR in a single month, implying roughly $2.7 million ARR per employee; growth path was $100M (Jul 2025) to $200M (Nov 2025) to $300M (Jan 2026) to $400M (Feb 2026)", "date": "2026-03-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/11/lovable-says-it-added-100m-in-revenue-last-month-alone-with-just-146-employees/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "ElevenLabs", "country": "UK/Poland (dual HQ, London and Warsaw origins)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "ElevenLabs ended 2025 at $350 million ARR and surpassed $500 million ARR within the first four months of 2026, with 530 employees across 50+ countries", "date": "2026-05-05", "grade": "A", "source": "https://elevenlabs.io/blog/500m-arr-and-new-investors", "outlet": "ElevenLabs company blog" } ] }, { "name": "Anysphere (Cursor)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Cursor surpassed $2 billion in annualized revenue, per a Bloomberg source, having doubled its revenue run rate over the prior three months (up from $1B ARR in late November 2025 and $500M ARR in June 2025).", "date": "2026-03-02", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/cursor-has-reportedly-surpassed-2b-in-annualized-revenue/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "Midjourney", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Midjourney's revenue was reported by The Information as having \"significantly\" surpassed $200 million (2023 figure, per CEO David Holz); widely-cited but unconfirmed third-party estimates (GetLatka, Sacra, valueaddvc) put 2025 ARR near $500 million, but Midjourney has never officially disclosed a 2025/2026 revenue figure.", "date": "2026-03-29", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/midjourney-revenue-now-significantly-200-million", "outlet": "The Information" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Prompt to app", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/prompt-to-app", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "People describe software in plain language and get a working, deployed application, paid by usage.", "companies": [ { "name": "Lovable", "country": "Sweden", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Lovable's ARR trajectory: $100M (Jul 2025), $200M (Nov 2025), $300M (Jan 2026), $400M (Feb 2026), with 146 employees", "date": "2026-03-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/11/lovable-says-it-added-100m-in-revenue-last-month-alone-with-just-146-employees/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "Vercel (v0)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Vercel's ARR run rate reached $340 million by end of February 2026, up from $100 million at the start of 2024 (240% growth over roughly two years), with CEO Guillermo Rauch stating about 30% of apps running on Vercel's platform were generated by AI agents rather than hand-written; the article did not break out v0's standalone revenue", "date": "2026-04-13", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/13/vercel-ceo-guillermo-rauch-signals-ipo-readiness-as-ai-agents-fuel-revenue-surge/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Generative media subscriptions", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/generative-media-subscriptions", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Music, voice and video generated on demand, sold by subscription to consumers and creators.", "companies": [ { "name": "ElevenLabs", "country": "UK/US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised a $500 million Series D at an $11 billion valuation (more than tripling from a year prior), reporting over $330 million in ARR as of the close of 2025", "date": "2026-02-04", "grade": "A", "source": "https://elevenlabs.io/blog/series-d", "outlet": "ElevenLabs" } ] }, { "name": "Kuaishou (Kling AI)", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Kling AI video-generation revenue exceeded RMB850 million (roughly $118 million) in Q2 2026, up more than 200% year over year and 30% quarter over quarter; first-half 2026 revenue reached RMB1.5 billion", "date": "2026-08-20", "grade": "B", "source": "https://technode.com/2026/08/20/kuaishous-kling-ai-revenue-tops-rmb850-million-in-q2-up-more-than-200/", "outlet": "TechNode" } ] }, { "name": "Synthesia", "country": "UK", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue and received a strategic investment from Adobe Ventures; more than 70% of the Fortune 100 are now customers, up from 40% two years earlier", "date": "2025-04-15", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.synthesia.io/post/100-million-revenue-adobe-investment", "outlet": "Synthesia" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Expert data marketplaces", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/expert-data-marketplaces", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "human-signal", "line": "Platforms pay doctors, lawyers, engineers and other experts to create and grade the data that trains AI.", "companies": [ { "name": "Mercor", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Annualized revenue crossed $1 billion in February 2026 and $2 billion by June 2026", "date": "2026-07-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2026/07/09/mercor-fundraise/", "outlet": "Forbes" }, { "claim": "In talks to raise $500 million at a $20 billion valuation (expected to close later in July 2026), up from a $10 billion valuation in September 2025 on a $350 million prior round", "date": "2026-07-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2026/07/09/mercor-fundraise/", "outlet": "Forbes" } ] }, { "name": "Surge AI", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "2024 revenue of $1.2 billion, profitable and bootstrapped with no VC funding to date; named customers include Google, Meta, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Mistral, and it helped train Gemini and Claude", "date": "2025-09-17", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/09/17/the-ai-billionaire-youve-never-heard-of/", "outlet": "Forbes" }, { "claim": "Estimated valuation around $24 billion, with a pending raise reported at roughly $1 billion at a $30 billion valuation", "date": "2025-09-17", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/09/17/the-ai-billionaire-youve-never-heard-of/", "outlet": "Forbes" } ] }, { "name": "Micro1", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Grew gross annual run rate from $100 million to $500 million over eight months, reaching the $500 million milestone in August 2026; net run rate estimated at $150 to $200 million after payouts to experts", "date": "2026-08-20", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/ai-data-startup-micro1-reaches-500m-gross-run-rate-amid-ai-training-boom/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" }, { "claim": "Raised a Series A at a $500 million valuation around September 2025, with reports of a subsequent higher-valuation round unconfirmed in specifics", "date": "2025-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/ai-data-startup-micro1-reaches-500m-gross-run-rate-amid-ai-training-boom/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "Karya", "country": "India", "evidence": [ { "claim": "$4.42 million in wages directly distributed to Karya's worker network as of July 2026, with 200,000+ workers onboarded on the platform, and a 6.8x year-over-year increase in wages distributed from 2024 to 2025; datasets built in 115+ languages across 28 Indian states and deployed in 7 countries", "date": "2026-07", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.karya.in/impact", "outlet": "Karya" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Content licensed to AI labs", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/content-licensed-to-ai-labs", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "human-signal", "line": "Publishers and platforms license archives and live content to AI labs for training and for grounding answers.", "companies": [ { "name": "Reddit", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Reddit's 2024 licensing deal with Google was worth $60 million annually; as of the deal's approaching expiration, Reddit was reassessing renewal given that Google's AI-powered search answers were reducing traffic to Reddit and other publishers, and Reddit stock fell as the uncertainty was reported", "date": "2026-07-22", "grade": "B", "source": "https://qz.com/reddit-stock-google-ai-content-deal-072226", "outlet": "Quartz" }, { "claim": "Data licensing revenue grew 24% year over year to $43 million in Q2, about 5% of Reddit's $805 million total quarterly revenue, with Google and OpenAI as its two largest licensing customers", "date": "2026-08-17", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/08/17/reddits-data-revenue-openai-google-buyers/", "outlet": "The Motley Fool" } ] }, { "name": "News Corp", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Signed a content licensing deal with OpenAI reported to be worth more than $250 million over roughly five years, among the largest publisher-AI deals reached to date; specific payment terms were not disclosed", "date": "2024-05-23", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/openai-and-news-corp-strike-a-content-deal-valued-at-over-250-million/", "outlet": "Nieman Lab (citing WSJ)" } ] }, { "name": "Le Monde / Prisa Media", "country": "France / Spain", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Entered a global news partnership with OpenAI for ChatGPT to surface summaries with attribution and enhanced links to original articles, with content also contributing to model training; deal financial terms were not disclosed publicly", "date": "2024-03-13", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openai.com/index/global-news-partnerships-le-monde-and-prisa-media/", "outlet": "OpenAI" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Paid AI access to content", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/paid-ai-access-to-content", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "human-signal", "line": "Networks and platforms charge AI systems for access to content, moving from per-crawl fees toward payment when content is actually used.", "companies": [ { "name": "Cloudflare", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Launched Pay Per Crawl in private beta, letting sites charge AI crawlers per fetch", "date": "2025-07-01", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.cloudflare.com/paypercrawl-signup/", "outlet": "Cloudflare" }, { "claim": "From September 15, 2026, Cloudflare's default settings block \"mixed-use\" AI crawlers from ad-supported pages for new customers, new sites, and all free-tier customers", "date": "2026-07-01", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/01/cloudflares-new-policy-pushes-ai-companies-to-pay-for-publishers-content/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" }, { "claim": "One year after launch, Cloudflare pivoted away from charging per fetch: it said more than half of \"legitimate\" bot crawl traffic re-fetches pages that have not changed, making crawl frequency a poor value proxy, and moved toward paying publishers only when their content appears in AI-generated answers (partners Ceramic.ai and You.com), describing the whole effort as still experimental", "date": "2026-07-01", "grade": "B", "source": "https://ppc.land/cloudflare-stops-charging-ai-per-crawl-and-starts-paying-per-answer/", "outlet": "PPC Land" } ] }, { "name": "TollBit", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised a $24 million Series A led by Lightspeed, after a roughly $7 million seed in March 2024; over 200 publisher sites onboarded including Penske Media Corporation, TIME, Mumsnet, Trusted Media Brands, and ADWEEK, with transactions live on the product", "date": "2025", "grade": "A", "source": "https://tollbit.com/blog/series-a/", "outlet": "TollBit" }, { "claim": "In partnership with Akamai, TollBit monitors over 1.5 billion quarterly bot scrapes across 3,000+ publishers and redirects roughly 450 million quarterly bot requests to its paywall product", "date": "2025-09-17", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/no-free-crawls-akamai-tollbit-and-skyfire-turn-traffic-into-revenue", "outlet": "Akamai" } ] }, { "name": "Akamai", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Akamai handles more than 150 billion bot requests across its network every day; announced a three-way alliance with TollBit and Skyfire to route and monetize AI bot traffic, with no revenue figures disclosed for the alliance itself", "date": "2025-09-17", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/no-free-crawls-akamai-tollbit-and-skyfire-turn-traffic-into-revenue", "outlet": "Akamai" } ] }, { "name": "Fastly", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "AI bot traffic grew about 30% between January and May 2026, roughly 6.5x faster than human traffic in the same period, with Claude-related traffic up more than 555% versus its January 2026 baseline; the release frames this as a traffic-management challenge and discloses no monetization revenue from AI bot management", "date": "2026-06-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://investors.fastly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/ai-traffic-grew-65x-faster-human-traffic-year-creating-new", "outlet": "Fastly" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Agentic checkout", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/agentic-checkout", "register": "rising", "state": "Contested", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "AI agents complete purchases on a person's behalf, and the merchant or network pays for the agent-originated sale.", "companies": [ { "name": "OpenAI / Stripe (Agentic Commerce Protocol)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenAI and Stripe launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT for US users, live at launch with Etsy merchants and, coming soon, over one million Shopify merchants including Glossier, Vuori, Spanx and SKIMS", "date": "2025-09-29", "grade": "A", "source": "https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-openai-instant-checkout", "outlet": "Stripe Newsroom" }, { "claim": "OpenAI discontinued the original Instant Checkout after less than six months, saying it 'did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide,' and pivoted toward product discovery and app integrations rather than in-chat transaction completion", "date": "2026-03-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/24/openai-revamps-shopping-experience-in-chatgpt-after-instant-checkout.html", "outlet": "CNBC" } ] }, { "name": "Visa (Visa Intelligent Commerce)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Visa Intelligent Commerce has completed hundreds of secure agent-initiated transactions with ecosystem partners, has over 100 partners globally and 30+ building in its sandbox, with Asia Pacific and Europe pilots anticipated early 2026 and a UAE pilot with Aldar", "date": "2025-12-18", "grade": "A", "source": "https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.21961.html", "outlet": "Visa Newsroom" } ] }, { "name": "Ant Group (Alipay AI Pay)", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Alipay's AI Pay processed more than 120 million agent-initiated transactions in a single week (Feb 5 to 11, 2026)", "date": "2026-02-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/120-million-ai-pay-transactions-single-week-ai-shopping-agents-move-theory-checkout", "outlet": "Nasdaq/press release syndication" } ] }, { "name": "PayPal / Perplexity", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "PayPal and Perplexity launched 'Instant Buy' in Perplexity's chat interface with over 5,000 participating merchants (Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, Ashley Furniture, Newegg among initial retailers), with a 50% cashback promo capped at $50 for first purchases Nov 25 to Dec 1, 2025", "date": "2025-11-25", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2025/paypal-and-perplexity-debut-instant-buy-ahead-of-black-friday-shopping/", "outlet": "PYMNTS" } ] }, { "name": "Amazon (Buy for Me)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Amazon launched 'Buy for Me,' an agentic feature letting the Amazon Shopping app buy items from other brands' sites, in beta for a limited subset of US customers on iOS and Android, built on Amazon Nova and Anthropic's Claude via Bedrock", "date": "2025-04-03", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-shopping-app-buy-for-me-brands", "outlet": "About Amazon" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Optimizing for AI answers", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/optimizing-for-ai-answers", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "Software and services that track and improve how often AI answer engines cite and recommend a brand.", "companies": [ { "name": "Profound", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Profound raised a $96 million Series C led by Lightspeed (with Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins and others), reaching a $1 billion valuation at 18 months old, with over 700 enterprise customers including 10% of the Fortune 500 (named clients Target, Walmart, Ramp, MongoDB, U.S. Bank, Figma)", "date": "2026-02-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/exclusive-as-ai-threatens-search-profound-raises-96-million-to-help-brands-stay-visible/", "outlet": "Fortune" } ] }, { "name": "Semrush", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Semrush reported full-year 2025 revenue of $443.6 million (up 18% year over year), with its AI products line surpassing $38 million in ARR as of December 31, 2025, up from $4 million a year earlier, and AI products plus Enterprise together contributing $63 million of the company's $471.4 million total ending ARR", "date": "2025-12-31", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.semrush.com/news/448771-semrush-announces-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-financial-results/", "outlet": "Semrush" } ] }, { "name": "Ahrefs (Brand Radar)", "country": "Singapore", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Ahrefs, a bootstrapped and profitable company based in Singapore with over $100 million ARR, launched custom AI prompt tracking for its Brand Radar product to monitor brand mentions across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity", "date": "2026-01-20", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260120714417/en/Ahrefs-Launches-Custom-AI-Prompt-Tracking-for-Brand-Visibility", "outlet": "Ahrefs (Business Wire press release)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Model routing", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/model-routing", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "1", "rung_name": "Flow through", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "One interface over hundreds of models, routing each request to the best fit and taking a margin on the tokens that pass through.", "companies": [ { "name": "OpenRouter", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenRouter raised a $113 million Series B led by CapitalG, reporting weekly token volume growth from 5 trillion to 25 trillion tokens over the prior six months, serving 8M+ developers across 400+ models, and projecting over a quadrillion tokens processed in 2026", "date": "2026-05-28", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openrouter.ai/blog/announcements/series-b/", "outlet": "OpenRouter" } ] }, { "name": "Vercel (AI Gateway)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Vercel's own AI Gateway Production Index reports open-weight models reaching a majority share of gateway token volume over the course of 2026, with monthly published breakdowns of volume and spend by model", "date": "2026-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://vercel.com/blog/ai-gateway-production-index-september-2026", "outlet": "Vercel" } ] } ] }, { "name": "AI glasses", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ai-glasses", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "Eyewear sold as the everyday interface to an AI assistant.", "companies": [ { "name": "Meta (Ray-Ban Meta / Oakley Meta, with EssilorLuxottica)", "country": "United States / Italy-France (EssilorLuxottica)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Meta controlled 94% of display-less AI glasses shipments in H1 2026, with its own volumes up 260% year on year, and 37% share of the smaller AR/AI display glasses segment behind Rokid's 41%", "date": "2026-09-21", "grade": "B", "source": "https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/21/report-ai-glasses-shipments-surged-263-in-h1-2026-as-apple-prepares-to-enter-the-market/", "outlet": "9to5Mac (citing Counterpoint Research)" } ] }, { "name": "Xiaomi", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Xiaomi captured only about 1% of the display-less AI glasses shipment segment in H1 2026, level with Alibaba, despite market enthusiasm reported by company executives", "date": "2026-09-21", "grade": "B", "source": "https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/21/report-ai-glasses-shipments-surged-263-in-h1-2026-as-apple-prepares-to-enter-the-market/", "outlet": "9to5Mac (citing Counterpoint Research)" } ] }, { "name": "Rokid", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Rokid led the AR/AI display glasses segment with 41% market share in H1 2026, in a segment that grew 449% year on year, ahead of Meta's 37%", "date": "2026-09-21", "grade": "B", "source": "https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/21/report-ai-glasses-shipments-surged-263-in-h1-2026-as-apple-prepares-to-enter-the-market/", "outlet": "9to5Mac (citing Counterpoint Research)" } ] }, { "name": "Humane (AI Pin, counter-example)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "HP acquired Humane's software (CosmOS) and over 300 patents for $116 million; the AI Pin device itself was shut down and all units stopped working as of February 28, 2025, roughly 10 months after its $699-plus-$24/month launch, described as a poor value proposition versus alternatives", "date": "2025-02-18", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.howtogeek.com/humane-ai-pin-shutdown/", "outlet": "How-To Geek" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Tiered intelligence subscriptions", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/tiered-intelligence-subscriptions", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "The same assistant sold in tiers by capability and usage, up to US$200 or more a month for the top tier.", "companies": [ { "name": "Anthropic (Claude)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Anthropic launched a $200-per-month Claude subscription tier (Max)", "date": "2025-04-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/anthropic-rolls-out-a-200-per-month-claude-subscription", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "OpenAI (ChatGPT)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenAI's own pricing page lists a top ChatGPT Pro tier as the highest of four paid consumer/prosumer tiers (Go, Plus, Pro, Business), each priced per user per month; the specific $200/month Pro figure widely reported at its December 2024 launch was not readable in the fetched live page but is corroborated by multiple secondary pricing trackers current to 2026", "date": "2026-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://chatgpt.com/pricing/", "outlet": "OpenAI" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Neoclouds", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/neoclouds", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "L", "rung_name": "Leveraged", "family": "Owning the scarce inputs", "loop": "capital", "line": "Specialist GPU clouds sell capacity on multi-year contracts to AI labs and hyperscalers.", "companies": [ { "name": "CoreWeave", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "2025 full-year revenue of $5.1 billion; reported backlog of $66.8 billion at end of 2025, rising toward $88 billion including a Meta expansion; Meta agreement expanded to $21 billion running through December 2032 (from a prior $14.2 billion deal through December 2031); active data center capacity of 850 megawatts at end of 2025 with 3.1 gigawatts contracted and a target of ~4 gigawatts active by end of 2026", "date": "2026-04-15", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/04/15/coreweave-has-a-massive-88-billion-revenue-backlog/", "outlet": "The Motley Fool" } ] }, { "name": "Nebius", "country": "Netherlands (formerly Yandex, Russia origin)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Microsoft agreement worth $17.4 billion over five years, potentially rising to $19.4 billion with additional services and capacity; initial delivery from Nebius's Vineland, New Jersey facility, expanding to Kansas City, Iceland, the UK and Israel", "date": "2025-09-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-to-use-nebius-gpu-data-centers-in-deal-worth-174bn-over-five-years/", "outlet": "Data Center Dynamics" } ] }, { "name": "Firmus", "country": "Australia", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised $505 million led by Coatue at a $5.5 billion post-money valuation, part of $1.35 billion raised in six months; building an 'AI factory' network of data centers in Australia and Tasmania (Project Southgate) using Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform expected in H2 2026; earlier AU$330 million round at an AU$1.85 billion valuation with Nvidia as investor", "date": "2026-04-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/07/firmus-the-southgate-ai-datacenter-builder-backed-by-nvidia-hits-5-5b-valuation/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Compute for equity", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/compute-for-equity", "register": "rising", "state": "Contested", "rung": "L", "rung_name": "Leveraged", "family": "Owning the scarce inputs", "loop": "capital", "line": "Chip and cloud suppliers invest in AI labs that then commit to buying the suppliers' compute.", "companies": [ { "name": "Nvidia / OpenAI", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Nvidia intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt of at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems is deployed, with the first gigawatt targeted for H2 2026 using the Vera Rubin platform", "date": "2025-09-22", "grade": "A", "source": "https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systems", "outlet": "Nvidia newsroom" } ] }, { "name": "AMD / OpenAI", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "AMD and OpenAI agreed to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs (starting with 1 gigawatt in H2 2026); AMD issued OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares, vesting in tranches tied to gigawatt deployment milestones plus AMD share-price and OpenAI technical/commercial targets", "date": "2025-10-06", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openai.com/index/openai-amd-strategic-partnership/", "outlet": "OpenAI" } ] }, { "name": "Amazon / Anthropic", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Amazon investing up to a further $25 billion in Anthropic (on top of a $5 billion tranche) as part of an expanded AI infrastructure and compute collaboration, with Anthropic committing to significant AWS cloud spending", "date": "2026-04-20", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/20/amazon-invest-up-to-25-billion-in-anthropic-part-of-ai-infrastructure.html", "outlet": "CNBC" } ] }, { "name": "Google / Anthropic", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Google to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic in cash and compute, as part of a TPU deal reportedly worth tens of billions, providing up to roughly 1 million Google TPUs and over 1 gigawatt of capacity", "date": "2026-04-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/google-to-invest-up-to-40b-in-anthropic-in-cash-and-compute/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Sovereign AI capacity", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/sovereign-ai-capacity", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "L", "rung_name": "Leveraged", "family": "Owning the scarce inputs", "loop": "capital", "line": "National AI compute built as a commercial business, anchored by state capital or demand.", "companies": [ { "name": "G42 (Stargate UAE)", "country": "United Arab Emirates", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Global Tech Alliance (G42, OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank, Cisco) launched Stargate UAE: a planned 5-gigawatt UAE-U.S. AI campus with a first 1-gigawatt cluster, and an initial 200-megawatt phase targeted for 2026, built by G42 and operated by OpenAI and Oracle on Nvidia Grace Blackwell GB300 systems", "date": "2025-05-22", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.g42.ai/resources/news/global-tech-alliance-launches-stargate-uae", "outlet": "G42" } ] }, { "name": "Mistral AI", "country": "France", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised $830 million in debt financing, including from Bpifrance (France's public investment bank) alongside commercial banks, to build a data center near Paris with 13,800 Nvidia GB300 GPUs, targeting operations by end of June 2026 and 200MW of European capacity by end of 2027; framed explicitly around European sovereign AI independence", "date": "2026-03-30", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/mistral-ai-raises-830m-in-debt-financing-for-data-center-in-paris-france/", "outlet": "Data Center Dynamics" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Energy underwritten by compute", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/energy-underwritten-by-compute", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "L", "rung_name": "Leveraged", "family": "Owning the scarce inputs", "loop": "capital", "line": "Tech companies sign long power contracts large enough to restart, extend or build power plants.", "companies": [ { "name": "Amazon / Talen Energy", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "$18 billion, 17-year PPA (through 2042) for up to 1,920MW of carbon-free power from the Susquehanna nuclear plant, ramping from 840-1,200MW by 2029 to 1,680-1,920MW by 2032, restructured into a grid-connected retail model via PPL Electric Utilities and PJM Interconnection", "date": "2025-06-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.powermag.com/talen-amazon-launch-18b-nuclear-ppa-a-grid-connected-ipp-model-for-the-data-center-era/", "outlet": "POWER Magazine" } ] }, { "name": "Meta / Constellation Energy", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "20-year PPA for the entire output of the Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois (1.121GW, including a 30MW expansion from 1.092GW), commencing June 2027, preserving over 1,000 jobs", "date": "2026", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/meta-signs-20-year-ppa-with-constellation-for-entire-output-of-illinois-nuclear-power-plant/", "outlet": "Data Center Dynamics" } ] }, { "name": "Google / Kairos Power", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Partnership to bring 500MW of new advanced (SMR) nuclear power online by 2035; first project, the Hermes 2 plant, expanded from 28MW to 50MW, targeted online 2030; Tennessee Valley Authority set to be first US utility to buy power from an advanced fourth-generation reactor for Google's Tennessee/Alabama data centers", "date": "2025-08-21", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.esgdive.com/news/google-kairos-power-deal-aims-for-tennessee-nuclear-reactor-by-2030-tva-ai-data-center-demands/758303/", "outlet": "ESG Dive" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Driverless rides", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/driverless-rides", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "Robotaxi fleets sell rides with no driver, at the same unit as ride-hailing.", "companies": [ { "name": "Waymo", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Providing about 500,000 paid robotaxi rides per week across 10 U.S. cities (Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Orlando), up from 50,000 weekly trips in May 2024", "date": "2026-03-27", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/27/waymo-skyrocketing-ridership-in-one-chart/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "Baidu Apollo Go", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Expanded to 28 cities globally, including fully driverless commercial operations launched in Dubai, open-road testing in London with Uber and Lyft, and first Hong Kong autonomous testing permits, plus Switzerland testing with PostBus", "date": "2026-Q2", "grade": "A", "source": "https://ir.baidu.com/news-releases/news-release-details/baidu-announces-first-quarter-2026-results", "outlet": "Baidu IR (Q2 2026 results release)" } ] }, { "name": "WeRide", "country": "China (Middle East operations)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "WeRide and Uber to deploy at least 1,200 robotaxis across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh, expected to be complete as soon as 2027; WeRide states it already operates more than 200 robotaxis in the region", "date": "2026-02-06", "grade": "A", "source": "https://ir.weride.ai/news-releases/news-release-details/weride-and-uber-deploy-1200-robotaxis-middle-east", "outlet": "WeRide investor relations" } ] }, { "name": "Tesla Robotaxi", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Roughly 200 vehicles total across Austin and the Bay Area combined as of February 2026, up from ~10 at June 2025 launch and 32 in December 2025; announced 'unsupervised' rides on January 22, 2026 then those disappeared from tracking within a week; service availability measured at only 19% of operating hours in the prior 48 hours", "date": "2026-02-16", "grade": "B", "source": "https://electrek.co/2026/02/16/tesla-robotaxi-status-check-8-months-in/", "outlet": "Electrek" } ] }, { "name": "Zoox (Amazon)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Began charging for driverless rides in Las Vegas from August 10-11, 2026, after a period of free public rides", "date": "2026-08-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.fox5vegas.com/2026/08/11/zoox-begins-charging-robotaxi-rides-las-vegas-more-autonomous-vehicle-companies-look-move-traditional-driver-moves-out/", "outlet": "Fox5 Vegas" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Robots as a service", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/robots-as-a-service", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "Robots, including humanoids, deployed into operations on multi-year or per-hour contracts rather than sold outright.", "companies": [ { "name": "Agility Robotics", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "GXO signed what both companies call the industry's first formal commercial deployment and first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreement for humanoid robots, with Digit robots working at a SPANX fulfillment facility moving totes from cobots onto conveyors; multi-year but with quantities and price undisclosed", "date": "2024-06-27", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.agilityrobotics.com/content/gxo-signs-industry-first-multi-year-agreement-with-agility-robotics", "outlet": "Agility Robotics (press release, mirrored by GXO)" } ] }, { "name": "Figure AI", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Figure's Figure 02 humanoid completed an 11-month pilot at BMW's Spartanburg plant supporting production of over 30,000 vehicles; the successor Figure 03 project was announced as moving toward real production processes rather than a pilot, with unit count and commercial/pricing terms undisclosed", "date": "2026-06-25", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0458778EN/bmw-group-advances-the-use-of-physical-ai-in-production-with-figure-03-project-in-spartanburg?language=en", "outlet": "BMW Group press release" } ] }, { "name": "UBTech Robotics", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "H1 2026 revenue of 1.269 billion yuan, up 104.2% year on year; sold 921 full-size humanoid robots (up 1,946.7% year on year), full-size division revenue 590 million yuan (up 1,445.0%) rising to 46.5% of total revenue from 6.1% a year earlier; net loss narrowed 23.0% to 339 million yuan", "date": "2026-09-01", "grade": "B", "source": "https://autonews.gasgoo.com/articles/market-industry/ubtech-reports-127-billion-yuan-in-first-half-revenue-sells-921-full-size-humanoid-robots-2094660109459607553", "outlet": "Gasgoo (Autonews)" } ] }, { "name": "Symbotic", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Backlog reached $22.5 billion in the latest quarter; Walmart, its largest customer, accounted for 85% of fiscal 2025 revenue under a Master Automation Agreement extending through 2037", "date": "2026-09-01", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/09/01/symbotics-backlog-sits-at-x-billion-heres-the-cust/", "outlet": "The Motley Fool" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Open weights with paid layers", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/open-weights-with-paid-layers", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "network", "line": "Model weights are released openly and revenue comes from hosting, API access, enterprise deployment or cloud.", "companies": [ { "name": "Alibaba Cloud (Qwen)", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Cloud Intelligence Group external revenue grew 40% YoY to RMB41.6B (~US$6B) in the March quarter of fiscal 2026, with AI-related product revenue posting triple-digit YoY growth for the 11th consecutive quarter and reaching an annualized run rate of about US$5.2B (30% of Cloud's external revenue); Model Studio (Qwen-based Model-as-a-Service) saw eightfold customer growth YoY", "date": "2026-05-13", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.alibabagroup.com/en-US/document-1991364841188622336", "outlet": "Alibaba Group" } ] }, { "name": "DeepSeek", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Annualized revenue of $400-500M as of July 2026, per The Information, generated via paid API access to its open-weight models; charges $2.19 per million output tokens versus roughly $60 for a comparable OpenAI model, while maintaining 70-80% gross margins on its V4 flagship", "date": "2026-07-15", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/deepseek-revenue-nears-500-million-as-chinese-ai-startup-eyes-ipo/", "outlet": "PYMNTS (citing The Information)" } ] }, { "name": "Moonshot AI (Kimi)", "country": "China", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Revenue run rate hit roughly $1B annualized by August 2026, with a year-end 2026 target of $2B; open-weight K3 model generates 'far lower margins' than closed-weight rivals, with OpenRouter data showing about 300 billion tokens/day generated by K3", "date": "2026-09-11", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/11/kimi-maker-moonshot-ai-targets-2-billion-in-annual-revenue/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Open protocols as commons", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/open-protocols-as-commons", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "network", "line": "Companies donate agent protocols to neutral foundations, and rivals then build on the same standard.", "companies": [ { "name": "Anthropic (Model Context Protocol)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "MCP contributed to the newly formed Agentic AI Foundation (Linux Foundation) on 2025-12-09; over 10,000 MCP servers already published at the time of the announcement", "date": "2025-12-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-formation-of-the-agentic-ai-foundation", "outlet": "Linux Foundation" }, { "claim": "OpenAI (Sam Altman, 2025-03-26), Google DeepMind (Demis Hassabis, 2025-05), and Microsoft/GitHub (Build 2025, 2025-05-19, joining MCP's steering committee) each announced adopting or supporting MCP; Salesforce anchored its Agentforce 3 platform around MCP on 2025-06-23", "date": "2025-03-26 to 2025-06-23", "grade": "B", "source": "https://thenewstack.io/why-the-model-context-protocol-won/", "outlet": "The New Stack" } ] }, { "name": "Google (Agent2Agent protocol)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Google donated the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol to the Linux Foundation on 2025-06-24, backed at launch by Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce and SAP", "date": "2025-06-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://siliconangle.com/2025/06/24/google-donates-agent2agent-protocol-linux-foundation/", "outlet": "SiliconANGLE" } ] }, { "name": "Agentic AI Foundation (Linux Foundation)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Launched 2025-12-09 with Anthropic, Block and OpenAI as founding project contributors (MCP, goose, AGENTS.md respectively) and Amazon Web Services, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google and Microsoft as Platinum members; OpenAI's AGENTS.md already adopted by 60,000+ open source projects at launch", "date": "2025-12-09", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-formation-of-the-agentic-ai-foundation", "outlet": "Linux Foundation" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Stablecoin float", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/stablecoin-float", "register": "rising", "state": "Scaling", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "network", "line": "Issuers of dollar tokens earn the interest on the reserves backing them.", "companies": [ { "name": "Circle Internet Group", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Circle reported Q2 2026 total revenue and reserve income of $701 million (7% YoY growth), USDC in circulation of $73.3 billion (19% YoY growth), and Circle Payments Network annualized transaction volume of $14.7 billion (trailing 30 days, up 76% quarter over quarter)", "date": "2026-08-05", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-reports-second-quarter-2026-results", "outlet": "Circle press release" }, { "claim": "Circle completed its IPO in 2025 (CRCL, NYSE)", "date": "2025", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-reports-second-quarter-2026-results", "outlet": "Circle press release" } ] }, { "name": "Tether", "country": "British Virgin Islands / El Salvador (issuer entities); globally used", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Tether's year-to-date net profit surpassed $10 billion through Q3 2025 (Jan 1 to Sep 30, 2025), with USDT circulating supply over $174 billion at quarter end, growing past $183 billion by October 2025", "date": "2025-10-31", "grade": "A", "source": "https://tether.io/news/tether-attestation-reports-q1-q3-2025-profit-surpassing-10b-record-levels-in-us-treasuries-exposure-accelerating-usdt-supply-amidst-worlds-macroeconomic-uncertainty/", "outlet": "Tether.io" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Prediction markets", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/prediction-markets", "register": "rising", "state": "Emerging", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "network", "line": "Exchanges for event contracts whose prices become a real-time signal that media and platforms carry.", "companies": [ { "name": "Kalshi", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Kalshi raised $1 billion in a Series F round at a $22 billion valuation (from $11 billion five months earlier); institutional trading volume rose 800% over six months and annualized trading volume grew from $52 billion to $178 billion in the same period", "date": "2026-05-07", "grade": "A", "source": "https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-raises-1-billion-22-billion-valuation-institutional-demand-surges", "outlet": "Kalshi Newsroom" }, { "claim": "CNN struck a prediction-market data partnership with Kalshi giving CNN real-time API access to Kalshi's contract data for broadcast and digital use, exclusive against competing prediction-market data providers, but explicitly without CNN paying a licensing fee", "date": "2025-12-02", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/cnn-kalshi-prediction-market-data", "outlet": "Axios" } ] }, { "name": "Polymarket", "country": "United States (platform); Panama-incorporated originally, since relaunched in the US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) invested a further $600 million directly into Polymarket in March 2026, bringing ICE's total investment to roughly $1.64 billion (after ICE's initial $1 billion investment in October 2025), explicitly tied to ICE's data and market-technology business", "date": "2026-03-27", "grade": "A", "source": "https://ir.theice.com/press/news-details/2026/Intercontinental-Exchange-Announces-New-600-Million-Investment-in-Polymarket/default.aspx", "outlet": "ICE Investor Relations" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Digital workers priced as labor", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/digital-workers-priced-as-labor", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "3", "rung_name": "Compounds", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "self-improving", "line": "Framing more than a distinct model so far; the sharpest case (11x) is counter-evidence.", "companies": [ { "name": "Salesforce (Agentforce)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Salesforce's own announcement frames the May 2025 Flex Credits pricing overhaul explicitly as accelerating the \"Digital Labor Revolution\", pricing agents as pay-per-action digital workers rather than per-seat software", "date": "2025-05-15", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250515332990/en/Salesforce-Introduces-New-Flexible-Agentforce-Pricing-to-Accelerate-the-Digital-Labor-Revolution", "outlet": "Salesforce (Business Wire press release)" } ] }, { "name": "UiPath", "country": "US (founded Romania)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "UiPath, positioning itself as a leader in \"agentic automation\" orchestrating agents, robots and humans together, reported ARR of $1.723 billion for Q2 FY2026 (quarter ended July 31, 2025), up 11% year over year", "date": "2025-07-31", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001734722/000173472225000038/path-20250731xex991.htm", "outlet": "UiPath (SEC 8-K exhibit)" } ] }, { "name": "Artisan", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Artisan sells its AI sales agent \"Ava\" as a role substitute (an AI SDR), and as of April 2025 reported $5M ARR from 250 customers on a $25M Series A", "date": "2025-04-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/artisan-the-stop-hiring-humans-ai-agent-startup-raises-25m-and-is-still-hiring-humans", "outlet": "TechCrunch" }, { "claim": "Artisan is piloting performance-based (pay-per-response) pricing through a partnership with Paid.ai as an alternative to long-term contracts", "date": "2025-04-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/artisan-the-stop-hiring-humans-ai-agent-startup-raises-25m-and-is-still-hiring-humans", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] }, { "name": "11x", "country": "US (founded UK)", "evidence": [ { "claim": "11x sold its AI sales agents as digital worker substitutes for SDRs, but TechCrunch reported the company displayed logos of ZoomInfo and Airtable as customers after only short, non-production trials, and calculated ARR (reportedly claiming ~$14M) using contracted figures that did not distinguish trial break-clause contracts from committed revenue, with actual retained contracts around $3M and employee-reported churn of 70 to 80 percent", "date": "2025-03-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/24/a16z-and-benchmark-backed-11x-has-been-claiming-customers-it-doesnt-have/", "outlet": "TechCrunch" } ] } ] }, { "name": "The one-person company", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/the-one-person-company", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "3", "rung_name": "Compounds", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "self-improving", "line": "One verified exit (Base44) and it had six employees; other claims self-reported.", "companies": [ { "name": "Base44 (founder Maor Shlomo)", "country": "Israel", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Wix acquired Base44 for $80 million (potentially rising with revenue targets through 2029); at acquisition Base44 had reached a multi-million-dollar revenue run rate, was profitable from day one (reported profit of $189,000 roughly two weeks before the deal), and employed only six people, six months after Shlomo built the initial product solo", "date": "2025-06-18", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1iflnlelx", "outlet": "Calcalist/CTech" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Machine-to-machine micropayments", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/machine-to-machine-micropayments", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "network", "line": "x402 settlement volume fell 93 percent from its peak by August 2026.", "companies": [ { "name": "Coinbase / Cloudflare (x402 protocol and x402 Foundation)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Coinbase and Cloudflare launched the x402 Foundation and added x402 (HTTP 402-based stablecoin micropayments) support to Cloudflare's Agents SDK and MCP integrations; Cloudflare said it already returns over a billion HTTP 402 response codes daily from bots and crawlers", "date": "2025-09-23", "grade": "A", "source": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/x402/", "outlet": "Cloudflare Blog" }, { "claim": "Cloudflare launched a Monetization Gateway (July 1, 2026) letting customers charge for webpages, APIs, datasets and MCP tools with stablecoin settlement via x402", "date": "2026-07-01", "grade": "B", "source": "https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/x402-settlement-volume-plunges-93-105710906.html", "outlet": "Yahoo Finance (via unnamed wire)" }, { "claim": "x402 daily settlement volume peaked around $800,000 to just over $1 million per day in Q4 2025, then fell 93% year-to-date to roughly $28,400 to $41,800 per day by mid-August 2026, a 55% decline over the prior three months", "date": "2026-08-13", "grade": "B", "source": "https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/x402-settlement-volume-plunges-93-105710906.html", "outlet": "Yahoo Finance" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Apps inside AI assistants", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/apps-inside-ai-assistants", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "Marketplaces launched; no disclosed developer revenue or take rates.", "companies": [ { "name": "OpenAI (Apps in ChatGPT / Apps SDK)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "OpenAI launched apps in ChatGPT and the Apps SDK (built on MCP) with seven launch partners (Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Expedia, Figma, Spotify, Zillow) and eleven more announced as coming soon, pitching developers on reach to over 800 million ChatGPT users; geographic availability excluded the EEA, Switzerland and the UK at launch", "date": "2025-10-06", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-apps-in-chatgpt/", "outlet": "OpenAI" }, { "claim": "As of the October 2025 announcement, OpenAI had not yet specified a monetization or revenue-share model for developers, saying only that details would come 'later this year'", "date": "2025-10-06", "grade": "A", "source": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-apps-in-chatgpt/", "outlet": "OpenAI" } ] }, { "name": "Anthropic (Claude Connectors Directory / plugin submission portal)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Anthropic opened a directory submission portal so developers on paid Claude plans can submit MCP connectors or plugin bundles (MCP connectors, Agent Skills, or both) to a Claude directory, with auto-validation, safety scanning and usage analytics, without disclosing developer revenue-share or pricing terms", "date": "2026-09-25", "grade": "A", "source": "https://claude.com/blog/build-plugins-for-claude", "outlet": "Claude (Anthropic)" } ] }, { "name": "Salesforce (AgentExchange)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Salesforce launched AgentExchange as a trusted marketplace for Agentforce agents, actions and templates, later unifying it with AppExchange and Slack Marketplace into a single agentic-enterprise marketplace", "date": "2025-03-04", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2025/03/04/agentexchange-announcement/", "outlet": "Salesforce Newsroom" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Autonomous businesses", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/autonomous-businesses", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "4", "rung_name": "Self-improving", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "self-improving", "line": "One experiment (Project Vend), no market-scale case.", "companies": [ { "name": "Anthropic / Andon Labs (Project Vend)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Phase two of Project Vend expanded the AI-operated vending/shop concept ('Claudius') from one San Francisco office to a second SF machine plus New York and London locations; 'weeks with negative profit margin were largely eliminated' versus phase one, with one example day of $408.75 revenue (208% of the day's target)", "date": "2026", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-2", "outlet": "Anthropic" }, { "claim": "Despite improvement, Claudius nearly entered an illegal onion futures contract, proposed inadequate responses to alleged shoplifting, and was socially engineered into free items and a fake-CEO impersonation during a mock vote", "date": "2026", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-2", "outlet": "Anthropic" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Likeness and voice licensing", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/likeness-and-voice-licensing", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "human-signal", "line": "ElevenLabs creator payouts (US$22 million) are real but one company; rights disputes unresolved.", "companies": [ { "name": "ElevenLabs", "country": "UK/US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Voice creators on ElevenLabs had earned $22 million cumulatively by May 2026, up from $11 million in November 2025, more than doubling in six months; over 10,400 creators are earning on the platform across dozens of languages", "date": "2026-05", "grade": "A", "source": "https://elevenlabs.io/blog/22-million-earned-by-voice-creators-on-elevenlabs", "outlet": "ElevenLabs" } ] }, { "name": "Universal Music Group / Warner Music Group (via Suno)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Warner Music Group settled its copyright lawsuit against Suno by signing a licensing deal that includes an opt-in for WMG artists and songwriters to allow use of their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions in AI-generated music, with compensation for participating artists (mechanism not detailed); UMG and Sony's claims in the same suit remained unresolved", "date": "2025-11-25", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-warner-music-sign-ai-licensing-deal-settle-lawsuit/", "outlet": "Billboard" } ] } ] }, { "name": "AI-tutored schooling", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ai-tutored-schooling", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "Headline learning claims rest on small samples; independent results weak.", "companies": [ { "name": "Alpha School / 2 Hour Learning", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "San Francisco Alpha campus charges $75,000/year tuition as of August 2026", "date": "2026-08", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-parents-love-a-school-with-bogus", "outlet": "The Argument" }, { "claim": "Marketed '2x learning' and 'gifted program 3-7x faster learning' claims are built on statistically weak comparisons (e.g. the 3-7x claim rested on five students with two test events, and normal test-score variance among a small cohort produces apparent multiples like '9x growth')", "date": "2026-08", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-parents-love-a-school-with-bogus", "outlet": "The Argument" } ] }, { "name": "Unbound Academy", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Free public charter school using Alpha's AI-driven platform reported only 28% proficiency in English language arts and 10% in math against Arizona state goals of 65% and 60% respectively", "date": "2026-08", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/why-parents-love-a-school-with-bogus", "outlet": "The Argument" } ] }, { "name": "Khan Academy (Khanmigo)", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "A redesigned Khan Academy 'for districts' AI tutoring product was in pilot with several school districts as of October 2025, with full rollout to district partners planned for back-to-school 2026; the announcement gave no adoption counts or pricing", "date": "2025-10-08", "grade": "A", "source": "https://blog.khanacademy.org/khan-academy-reimagined-for-districts-2026/", "outlet": "Khan Academy" } ] } ] }, { "name": "AI companions", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ai-companions", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "learning", "line": "Revenue modest and shifting to enterprise; regulatory and litigation pressure on minors.", "companies": [] }, { "name": "AI-run insurance", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ai-run-insurance", "register": "watch", "state": "Watch", "rung": "2", "rung_name": "Rides", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "ZhongAn's profitable AI-run underwriting is the strongest case but its figures are not yet confirmed from its own results; Lemonade is still loss-making and Wefox retreated from underwriting. Returns to the map once ZhongAn is confirmed.", "companies": [ { "name": "Lemonade", "country": "United States", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Q1 2026 in-force premium reached $1.33B (up 32% YoY); revenue $258M (up 71% YoY); net loss ratio improved 19 percentage points YoY", "date": "2026-04-29", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.reinsurancene.ws/lemonades-q126-revenue-increases-71-as-net-loss-narrows/", "outlet": "Reinsurance News" } ] }, { "name": "Wefox", "country": "Germany/Switzerland", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Raised EUR151M in July 2025 (EUR76M new capital plus EUR75M refinancing from Searchlight Capital) while pivoting away from capital-intensive underwriting toward an asset-light MGA and distribution model, after prior years of large underwriting losses (2023 net underwriting loss $40.5M, combined ratio 123%)", "date": "2025-07-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/07/07/830537.htm", "outlet": "Insurance Journal" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Per-seat software pricing", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/per-seat-software-pricing", "register": "retiring", "state": "Under pressure", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Software priced per human user.", "companies": [ { "name": "HubSpot", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "HubSpot moved its Customer Agent AI product from per-seat/monthly recurring pricing to $0.50 per resolved conversation (down from an earlier $1), and its Prospect Agent to $1 per qualified lead handed to sales, replacing a per-enrolled-contact charge, effective 2026-04-14", "date": "2026-04-02", "grade": "B", "source": "https://diginomica.com/look-what-easter-bunny-brought-hubspot-customers-shift-outcome-based-pricing-customer-and-prospect", "outlet": "diginomica" } ] }, { "name": "Salesforce", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Salesforce introduced outcome-based/consumption pricing for its Agentforce AI agents (commonly reported as ~$2 per conversation resolved) alongside its existing per-seat licenses, marketed as a response to AI compressing the value of human seat licenses", "date": "2025", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.cxtoday.com/ai-automation-in-cx/salesforces-outcome-based-pricing-strategic-masterstroke-or-defensive-scramble-against-ai-seat-compression/", "outlet": "CX Today" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Search-referral publishing", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/search-referral-publishing", "register": "retiring", "state": "Declining", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "control-point", "line": "Publishers funded by traffic from search results.", "companies": [ { "name": "Chegg, Inc.", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Q4 2024 total net revenue $143.5 million, down 24% year over year; full-year 2024 revenue $617.6 million, down 14%; subscribers down 21% YoY in Q4; non-subscriber traffic down as much as negative 49% in January 2025 versus an 8% decline in Q2 2024", "date": "2025-02-23", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250223441916/en/Chegg-Reports-2024-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-Financial-Results", "outlet": "Chegg (Business Wire press release)" }, { "claim": "Chegg cut 45% of its workforce (388 roles globally), stating \"the new realities of AI and reduced traffic from Google to content publishers have led to a significant decline in Chegg's traffic and revenue.\"", "date": "2025-10-27", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1364954/000136495425000112/a9901-pressreleasecheggtor.htm", "outlet": "Chegg 8-K exhibit (SEC EDGAR)" }, { "claim": "Chegg sued Google, alleging AI Overviews and AI-generated search results diverted traffic and destroyed its business, contributing to its stock crash.", "date": "2025-02-24", "grade": "B", "source": "https://fortune.com/2025/02/26/chegg-google-ai-lawsuit", "outlet": "Fortune" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Question-and-answer sites", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/question-and-answer-sites", "register": "retiring", "state": "Declining", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Owning the scarce human", "loop": "network", "line": "Sites monetizing people's need to ask a community or database.", "companies": [ { "name": "Chegg, Inc.", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Chegg cut 45% of its workforce (388 roles globally), stating \"the new realities of AI and reduced traffic from Google to content publishers have led to a significant decline in Chegg's traffic and revenue.\"", "date": "2025-10-27", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1364954/000136495425000112/a9901-pressreleasecheggtor.htm", "outlet": "Chegg 8-K exhibit (SEC EDGAR)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Offshore contact-center labor", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/offshore-contact-center-labor", "register": "retiring", "state": "Declining", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Customer service priced on headcount and wage arbitrage.", "companies": [ { "name": "Concentrix Corporation", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Concentrix cut its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $9.93 billion-$10.03 billion (from $10.04 billion-$10.18 billion) and non-GAAP EPS guidance to $10.83-$11.18 (from $11.48-$12.07), citing reduced client spending amid financial pressure; shares fell as much as 22% in after-hours trading.", "date": "2026-06-29", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1803599/000180359926000133/exhibit991q22026.htm", "outlet": "Concentrix Q2 2026 press release (SEC EDGAR 8-K exhibit)" } ] }, { "name": "Klarna Bank AB", "country": "Sweden", "evidence": [ { "claim": "CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said Klarna's AI-driven cost-cutting in customer service \"went too far,\" resulting in lower quality, and announced a recruitment drive for human customer-service agents (an \"Uber type\" flexible-work pilot) to ensure customers can always reach a person.", "date": "2025-05-08", "grade": "B", "source": "https://fortune.com/2025/05/09/klarna-ai-humans-return-on-investment/", "outlet": "Fortune" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Per-word human translation", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/per-word-human-translation", "register": "retiring", "state": "Declining", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Translation billed by the word a person renders.", "companies": [ { "name": "TransPerfect Global, Inc.", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "TransPerfect's billed revenue grew 7% in 2025 to $1.32 billion, its 33rd consecutive year of growth, but language services (traditional human translation) fell below 50% of total revenue for the first time, with growth instead driven by GlobalLink technology licensing (up 18%) and AI consulting", "date": "2025", "grade": "A", "source": "https://www.transperfect.com/about/press/transperfect-billed-revenues-increase", "outlet": "TransPerfect (company press release)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Commodity freelance gigs", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/commodity-freelance-gigs", "register": "retiring", "state": "Under pressure", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "Marketplaces taking a cut of small, commoditized tasks.", "companies": [ { "name": "Fiverr International Ltd.", "country": "Israel", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Fiverr is laying off 30% of its workforce, affecting 250 employees, as part of a restructuring to become an \"AI-first company\" with a leaner, flatter, AI-focused infrastructure, per CEO Micha Kaufman's letter to staff.", "date": "2025-09-15", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.reuters.com/technology/online-marketplace-fiverr-lay-off-30-workforce-ai-push-2025-09-15/", "outlet": "Reuters" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Stock media licensing", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/stock-media-licensing", "register": "retiring", "state": "Under pressure", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling abundance", "loop": "human-signal", "line": "Libraries of human-made images and video licensed per use.", "companies": [ { "name": "Getty Images Holdings, Inc.", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Getty Images reported full-year 2025 revenue of $981.3 million, up 4.5% year over year (its highest reported revenue in the company's 30-year history); FY2026 revenue guidance is $948M-$988M.", "date": "2026-03-16", "grade": "A", "source": "https://investors.gettyimages.com/news-releases/news-release-details/getty-images-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2025-results/", "outlet": "Getty Images (investor relations press release)" }, { "claim": "Getty Images and Shutterstock announced a merger of equals on 2025-01-07 (enterprise value approximately $3.7 billion combined, pro forma 2024 revenue $1.979-1.993 billion, 46% subscription-based), explicitly positioning the combined company's generative AI tools trained on licensed, indemnified content as a strategic response to AI-driven competition", "date": "2025-01-07", "grade": "A", "source": "https://investors.gettyimages.com/news-releases/news-release-details/getty-images-and-shutterstock-merge-creating-premier-visual", "outlet": "Getty Images (company press release)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Ten-blue-links search advertising", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/ten-blue-links-search-advertising", "register": "retiring", "state": "Early pressure", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Owning the choke points", "loop": "control-point", "line": "Ads on a results page that people click through.", "companies": [ { "name": "Apple Inc. (testimony about Google Safari default)", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Apple SVP Eddy Cue testified in the US v. Google antitrust trial that 'searches on Safari dipped for the first time last month,' attributing it to people using AI, and said he expects AI providers (OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic) to eventually displace conventional search engines, with Apple planning to add such options to Safari", "date": "2025-05-07", "grade": "B", "source": "https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/05/07/eddy-cue-safari-ai", "outlet": "Daring Fireball (reporting on court testimony)" } ] }, { "name": "Alphabet Inc. / Google", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "Alphabet's CEO stated in Q3 2025 earnings remarks that overall and commercial Google Search queries continued to grow year over year, with growth accelerating in Q3, driven by AI Overviews and AI Mode; AI Mode reached over 75 million daily active users with queries doubling quarter over quarter", "date": "2025-Q3", "grade": "A", "source": "https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q3-2025/", "outlet": "Google (Alphabet CEO earnings remarks)" } ] } ] }, { "name": "Headcount-billed IT services", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/headcount-billed-it-services", "register": "retiring", "state": "Watch", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "cost-curve", "line": "IT services billed on the number of engineers staffed.", "companies": [ { "name": "Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)", "country": "India", "evidence": [ { "claim": "TCS cut approximately 12,260 employees (about 1% to 2% of its workforce) starting July 2025; headcount fell from about 613,069 (Q1 FY26) to 593,314 (Q2 FY26), a sequential decline of 19,755; the company's own stated reason was 'skills mismatch,' not AI directly", "date": "2025-10-09", "grade": "B", "source": "https://www.business-standard.com/industry/news/tcs-headcount-falls-below-600000-after-layoffs-in-july-2025-125100901286_1.html", "outlet": "Business Standard" } ] } ] }, { "name": "The billable hour and the pyramid", "url": "https://www.singularitybusinessmodels.com/model/the-billable-hour-and-the-pyramid", "register": "retiring", "state": "Watch", "rung": "0", "rung_name": "Fights", "family": "Selling the finished work", "loop": "learning", "line": "Professional services priced by hours and leveraged on junior staff.", "companies": [ { "name": "McKinsey & Company", "country": "US", "evidence": [ { "claim": "McKinsey's headcount fell from a peak of about 45,100 at end of 2023 to about 40,000 by May 2025, a decline of more than 10% over roughly 18 months; the company itself attributed this to normal attrition and performance-review firings, not AI, though outside commentators (e.g. Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma) speculated AI was a driver", "date": "2025-05-29", "grade": "B", "source": "https://fortune.com/2025/05/29/mckinsey-headcount-down-more-than-10-percent", "outlet": "Fortune" } ] } ] } ] }