Research for the applied AI economy
ISSUE 01 · AUGUST 2026Follow the
builders.
See the shift.
Applied AI index
Original reporting, company intelligence, and market maps on the startups turning artificial intelligence into products, infrastructure, and new ways of working.
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Three signals
shaping AI now.
Deep reporting on the operating layers, development practices, and data systems behind the next generation of AI companies.
The AI operating layer is moving downmarket
Why the next important business AI companies may be the ones connecting fragmented systems—not building another general-purpose assistant.
Enterprise agents have entered their software era
The hard problem is no longer making an agent look capable. It is defining, testing, governing, and improving one after it reaches production.
The physical AI race is becoming a data race
Humanoid robotics is moving beyond hardware demonstrations toward a harder question: how can machines learn enough varied experience to work in the real world?
Company radar
Six builders on
our desk.
A live cross-section of the companies we are following across development, business operations, customer experience, clinical AI, healthcare infrastructure, and robotics.
AI software developmentCursor / Anysphere
The AI-native development environment moving from autocomplete toward a full software-building collaborator.
Company profile ↗
Custom AI infrastructureAwayvo
An AI infrastructure company connecting intelligence to the real systems, data, and operating decisions inside growing businesses.
Company profile ↗
Customer experience agentsSierra
Customer-facing agents designed around measurable outcomes rather than simple ticket deflection.
Company profile ↗
Clinical intelligenceAbridge
Purpose-built clinical AI turning healthcare conversations into documentation, context, and action.
Company profile ↗
Humanoid roboticsFigure
An integrated push to make general-purpose humanoids useful in workplaces and eventually homes.
Company profile ↗
Healthcare operations AITennr
Healthcare operations AI focused on the messy referral documents and workflows that determine whether patients reach care.
Company profile ↗Coverage desk
Business infrastructure
How AI connects fragmented tools, decisions, and operational work inside growing companies.
02Agents & enterprise
The systems required to define, test, govern, and improve agents after deployment.
03Healthcare AI
Clinical intelligence, referral operations, documentation, provenance, and patient access.
04Physical AI
Humanoid systems, robot foundation models, training data, evaluation, and real-world economics.
What we believe
Useful AI becomes infrastructure.
The most important companies will not be defined by novelty alone. They will connect intelligence to context, domain rules, real workflows, and physical environments.
We follow product depth, execution signals, deployment evidence, and the possibility that a company's approach becomes part of how work is performed.
Read our methodology →