I know, I know. You’ve been hearing about “AI transforming B2B” for two years now. Your LinkedIn feed is drowning in it. Every vendor has slapped “AI-powered” on their homepage.
But here’s the thing: we’re actually just now getting to the starting line.
Really. Most of this stuff didn’t even work until early 2025.
2024: The Models Weren’t Good Enough (Until They Were)
That AI SDR tool you bought in early 2024? The one that sent embarrassing emails to your prospects and got turned off after two weeks?
I get it. We all tried them.
The models simply weren’t capable enough yet. Not really. Not for production B2B use cases where your brand and pipeline are on the line.
But then something changed. And it happened in stages.
Stage 1: Claude 3.5 Sonnet (June 20, 2024) — The First Unlock
This was the moment AI coding started to become possible. But “possible” isn’t the same as “good.” The Bolt.new story tells it perfectly: StackBlitz tried building their AI app builder in January 2024 with state-of-the-art models. It didn’t work. The models weren’t good enough for real code generation. They were weeks away from shutting down.
Then Claude 3.5 Sonnet dropped in June. The CEO said the “agentic coding skills were leaps-and-bounds better.” By July 1st, they hard-pivoted back to their prototype.
Stage 2: Upgraded Claude 3.5 Sonnet (October 22, 2024) — The “Actually Good” Unlock
But here’s what most people missed: Anthropic shipped a major upgrade to Claude 3.5 Sonnet on October 22, 2024. SWE-bench scores jumped from 33% to 49% — a massive leap. Tool use improved dramatically. Computer use launched in beta.
This was the unlock that made these tools actually work:
- Bolt.new launched October 3, 2024 and went from $0 to $4M ARR in 30 days
- Lovable relaunched November 21, 2024 and hit $1M ARR in two weeks
- Cursor went viral as developers finally wanted to use AI coding daily
- Replit Agent launched September 2024, powered by Claude 3.5 Sonnet
- Gamma — the AI presentation tool — became profitable and started its run to $50M+ ARR
Stage 3: Early 2025 — The “Vibe Coding” Explosion
Even with those late-2024 launches, the real explosion happened at the very beginning of 2025.
Here’s the thing: the term “vibe coding” wasn’t even coined until February 2025 — when Andrej Karpathy described it as “fully giving in to the vibes, embracing exponentials, and forgetting that the code even exists.”
That’s how new this all is.
Y Combinator reported 25% of their Winter 2025 batch had codebases that were 95% AI-generated. Bolt hit $20M ARR by December 2024, then $40M ARR by March 2025. Replit went from $10M ARR at the end of 2024 to $100M ARR by June 2025 — 10x in less than six months.
Why the lag between October/November launches and January explosion? Partly timing (holiday slowdown). But also just time — time for word to spread, for people to try these tools and share their results, for the viral loop to kick in. Time for people to believe it actually worked.
Stage 4: Claude 4 (May 22, 2025) — The “Production-Grade” Unlock
Then came Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 on May 22, 2025. This was the jump from “works for prototypes” to “works for enterprise.”
Opus 4 could work autonomously for up to seven hours. It scored 72.5% on SWE-bench. It wasn’t a toy anymore — it was a production-grade tool that could handle sustained, complex, multi-step workflows.
This is when AI SDRs, AI support, AI agents across B2B started to actually work at scale. Not just impressive demos. Real production systems.
Four capability unlocks in 12 months. And we’re still just getting started.
The Agentic Unlock of Mid-2025: AIs Managing AIs
Then something even more important happened around mid-2025.
We started being able to have agents manage sub-agents. AIs orchestrating other AIs.
This sounds technical, but the implications are massive for B2B:
Instead of one AI doing one task, you can now have an AI:
- Break down a complex workflow into components
- Delegate pieces to specialized sub-agents
- Coordinate the results
- Handle exceptions and edge cases
This is the difference between “AI that helps with tasks” and “AI that runs processes.”
Think about what this means for:
Sales: An AI that doesn’t just write emails, but orchestrates prospecting research → personalization → multi-channel sequencing → response handling → meeting scheduling — with specialized agents handling each step.
Support: An AI that doesn’t just answer tickets, but triages → routes → resolves routine issues → escalates complex ones → follows up → analyzes patterns — all coordinated across specialized agents.
Marketing: An AI that doesn’t just write copy, but researches → plans campaigns → generates assets → tests variations → optimizes → reports — with agents specializing in each function.
This agentic orchestration unlock has just begun. We’re in the first inning.
2026: When AI + B2B Gets Real
Here’s my prediction: 2026 is when AI + B2B actually starts to get exciting.
What we’ve seen so far? It’s just a taste.
In 2025, we laid the foundation:
- Models that are actually good enough for production
- Agents that can manage other agents
- Early proof points that these systems can deliver real ROI
- First-generation tooling and infrastructure
In 2026 and beyond, we build the house:
- Compound AI systems that run entire business functions
- True workflow automation (not just task automation)
- AI that learns from your specific business context
- Integration depth that makes AI feel native, not bolted-on
What This Means for Founders and Operators
If you’re building: The opportunity is enormous, but the bar is now higher. “AI feature” isn’t enough. You need to think about compound systems, agentic workflows, and genuine business outcomes. The winners won’t be those who shipped AI features first — they’ll be those who shipped AI that actually delivers measurable ROI.
If you’re buying: Give it another look. Seriously. That category you wrote off in 2024 because the tools didn’t work? The landscape has fundamentally changed. The question isn’t “does AI work?” anymore. It’s “which AI solution works best for my specific use case?”
If you’re investing: 2026 is going to produce a new wave of breakout B2B AI companies. Not because AI is new, but because the foundation is finally solid enough to build transformative applications on top of.
The Good News for Founders: It’s Not Too Late
I know what your Twitter feed looks like. Everyone’s already built an AI startup. The space feels crowded. The moment feels like it passed.
It didn’t.
Here’s the truth: It’s not too late to build the world’s best AI B2B app. It’s not too late to build the world’s best AI agent in your space.
Yes, there are a lot of AI startups. But most of them were built on 2024-era models that couldn’t really deliver. Most of them are glorified wrappers. Most of them haven’t figured out the agentic orchestration layer yet. Most of them aren’t going to make it.
The winners in AI + B2B haven’t been decided yet. Not even close.
Think about it: if the foundation was just laid in 2025, how could the defining companies already be built? They can’t be. The best AI B2B companies of this era are being started right now — or haven’t been started yet.
2027 might be too late. By then, the categories will be hardening. The winners will be emerging. The window will be closing.
But not now.
Right now, the models finally work. The agentic patterns are just emerging. The playbooks haven’t been written. The market leaders haven’t been crowned.
If you’ve been thinking about building an AI-native B2B product — stop thinking. The window is open, but it won’t stay open forever.
Go build the best AI agent in your space. Go build the best AI-native app in your category.
Go do that. ASAP.
2026 is When It Gets Good In AI + B2B
We spent 2023 being amazed that AI could do anything at all.
We spent 2024 being disappointed that it couldn’t do things well enough.
We spent 2025 laying the foundation — models that work, agents that orchestrate, early wins that prove the model.
2026+ is when we actually build the future of B2B software on that foundation.
The hype cycle made us all cynical. But the underlying capability improvements are real. And they’re compounding.
We’re just getting going. Don’t miss it.
