Fordel StudiosVC predicts the consumer AI products OpenAI ‘won’t want to kill’
What Happened
Vanessa Larco, partner at Premise and former partner at NEA, thinks 2026 will finally be the year of consumer AI. Larco, who’s been investing in consumer and prosumer for years, thinks we’re about to see a shift in how consumers spend time online, with AI powering “concierge-like”
Our Take
She's right, but not for the reasons she thinks. 2026 will see consumer AI products survive because OpenAI can't kill what they don't own. The winners won't be the ones competing on model capability—they'll be the ones solving actual friction.
Look, ChatGPT is already a commodity. What consumers want is something *specific*—a companion for learning, a content remix tool, a workflow that does one thing so well they can't imagine doing it without it. That's the wedge.
But here's the catch: most of these products are going to get crushed by integration. When OpenAI or Google bake the same functionality into their platforms for free, the standalone apps evaporate. The ones that survive own the context—they understand your specific use case better than a generic model ever will.
What To Do
If you're building consumer AI, don't compete on smarts—own the workflow.
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