What Happens When AI Starts Picking Startups?

Last fall, a group of investors gathered to appraise a new startup. The company made software to automatically tune AI models. The founding team was strong, the market was expanding. One investor called it an “absolute banger.”

Here’s what made this deal unusual: every investor in the room was an AI agent.

Welcome to the new world of venture capital.

The $200 billion question

Venture capitalists have been some of AI’s biggest cheerleaders, pouring over $200 billion into AI companies last year alone. Vinod Khosla recently predicted AI will replace 80% of job responsibilities by 2030.

But here’s the uncomfortable part not many are talking about: VCs might be funding their own disruption.

A new platform called ADIN (Autonomous Deal Investing Network) is already using AI agents to replace human analysts in venture dealmaking. Feed it a pitch deck, and out comes a detailed analysis of the business model, founding team, due diligence questions, compliance risks, market size estimates, and suggested valuation. All in about an hour. Human analysts typically take days or weeks.

ADIN runs roughly a dozen different agentic investors, each with a distinct persona and investing thesis. Tech Oracle evaluates underlying technology. Unit Master looks at financial fundamentals. Monopoly Maker, loosely based on Peter Thiel, searches for market dominance. When the majority agree, they suggest how much to allocate.

Why this matters for the rest of us

You might think: “I’m not a VC, so why should I care?”

Here’s why. What ADIN is doing to venture capital is a preview of what’s happening across industries. The same pattern shows up in legal due diligence, financial analysis, marketing strategy, and yes, growth management.

Aaron Wright, ADIN’s cofounder, puts it plainly: venture capital is entering its “moneyball era.” The old approach, what he calls “finger-in-the-air, gut intuition,” yields home runs only about 1% of the time. Three-fourths of venture deals don’t even recover the cost of capital.

AI isn’t replacing the art of venture capital entirely. Not yet. But it’s getting very good at eliminating bad deals, focusing on winners, and lowering the cost of operations. Marc Andreessen recently argued on his podcast that venture capital might be “one of the last remaining fields that people are still doing” because it involves choosing the right ideas, at the right time, with the right people.

“That’s not science, that’s art,” Andreessen said.

But even art needs tools. And the tools are getting better fast.

What this means for your strategy

If you’re a growth manager or business leader, here’s what to watch:

First, expect the same automation in your industry. The diligence process that takes your team weeks AI can now do in hours. The competitive analysis that requires expensive consultants AI can generate in minutes. The market research that used to need a whole department AI can now synthesize continuously.

Second, the humans who thrive won’t be the ones doing the execution. They’ll be the ones asking the right questions, making the final calls, and bringing the relationships AI can’t replicate. Brian Nichols, cofounder of Angel Squad, puts it this way: VC is a business of networks. It’s about who you know and who you can vouch for.

Third, your “taste” becomes your mochi. As one Notion cofounder told WIRED, “Eventually, the only thing left for humans is agency.” The ability to direction-set, to see what others miss, to trust your gut when the data is ambiguous. That’s what matters.

The bottom line

AI won’t replace venture capitalists or growth managers entirely. But it will replace the parts of your job that are purely analytical, repetitive, or transactional. The question isn’t whether AI comes for those tasks. It’s whether you’ll be ready to pivot to the work that actually requires a human brain.

The VCs are nervous. And they should be. But so should anyone who thinks their job is safe just because it’s “creative” or “strategic.”

The machines are learning. And they’re getting good at picking winners.

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References: WIRED - Can AI Kill the Venture Capitalist? | WIRED - Are You ‘Agentic’ Enough for the AI Era?