10 AI Startups Leading the Future of Generative and Agent-Based Intelligence

These 10 AI Startups Are Shaping the Future of Generative and Agent-Based AI

AI startups continue to attract massive investments, with billions flowing into the sector in 2025. Many have become key players in large language models (LLMs), customer service automation, and code generation. Others focus on integrating AI directly into business workflows, optimizing AI costs, or building platforms for AI agents.

According to Gartner, global spending on generative AI is expected to hit $644 billion by 2025, growing 75% year-over-year. Additionally, AI service sales could reach $609 billion by 2028, fueled by innovations in generative AI and enhanced predictive analytics.

Here’s a breakdown of ten AI startups that are delivering practical AI solutions relevant to product development and business automation.

AI Squared

CEO: Darren Kimura | Headquarters: Washington, D.C.

AI Squared simplifies AI adoption by integrating AI models into customer applications via SaaS and on-premises platforms. Their approach combines multiple data sources with AI to embed intelligent insights directly into workflows. The acquisition of Multiwoven, a reverse ETL platform, strengthens their ability to streamline data migration. Recently, they raised $14 million to expand these capabilities.

Anthropic

CEO: Dario Amodei | Headquarters: San Francisco

Anthropic is a major AI startup valued at over $61 billion. Their language model, Claude, integrates documents, tools, data, and web knowledge to assist with complex problem-solving and code writing. They secured $3.5 billion in Series E funding to advance AI system development, increase computing power, and accelerate global expansion.

Anysphere

CEO: Michael Truell | Headquarters: San Francisco

Known for its AI coding tool Cursor, Anysphere serves clients like OpenAI, Nvidia, and Uber. Cursor analyzes programmers’ actions and offers code suggestions, helping development teams improve efficiency. The company recently launched a $200 monthly subscription and is valued around $10 billion.

Cohere

CEO: Aidan Gomez | Headquarters: Toronto and San Francisco

Cohere delivers multilingual AI foundation models and end-to-end AI products focused on real business challenges. Their platform supports deployment across major cloud providers, private clouds, or on-premises, ensuring data privacy and security. With nearly $1 billion in funding, Cohere is backed by tech leaders like Cisco and AMD.

Decagon

CEO: Jesse Zhang | Headquarters: San Francisco

Decagon builds AI-powered customer support agents that automate inquiries across chat, email, and phone. Their Agent Operating Procedures technology helps teams automate repetitive tasks and boost productivity. They raised $65 million in 2024, with plans to secure $100 million more.

DevRev

CEO: Dheeraj Pandey | Headquarters: Palo Alto, California

DevRev integrates customer support and product development on an AI-native platform. Their products generate interconnected knowledge graphs to power AI agents, transforming complex processes into conversational workflows. The startup raised $100 million at a $1.1 billion valuation in 2024.

Morphos AI

Chairman: Aram Chavez | Headquarters: Tempe, Arizona

Morphos AI focuses on optimizing Large Language Model Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) vector databases. Their Green Vectors technology improves search accuracy while reducing storage and energy costs. By integrating seamlessly with existing systems, Morphos AI helps lower AI operational expenses.

Perplexity

CEO: Aravind Srinivas | Headquarters: San Francisco

Perplexity combines AI models like GPT-4 and Claude to interpret user queries, search the internet in real time, and aggregate information. They offer a free AI search engine and recently launched Perplexity Labs, enabling report generation and dashboard creation through code execution and web browsing tools. The startup partnered with Nidia to deliver localized AI models to European markets.

Thinking Machine Labs

CEO: Mira Murati | Headquarters: San Francisco

Founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, this startup aims to develop AI systems with advanced reasoning and multimodal capabilities. With OpenAI co-founder John Schulman as chief scientist, Thinking Machine Labs is targeting $1 billion in funding despite having no revenue yet.

Writer

CEO: May Habib | Headquarters: San Francisco

Writer offers an agent-building platform with collaborative tools to create, activate, and manage AI agents based on company data. Their large language models help speed up product launches, enhance financial research, and support experimentation. Writer counts Accenture, Intuit, and Marriott among its clients and has attracted investments from Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, and IBM.

For product development professionals looking to deepen their AI knowledge, exploring related AI courses by job role can provide practical skills to apply these technologies effectively.