The a16z Show · Saturday, September 12, 2026
Anish Acharya observes that companies are adopting AI in two main ways: either by integrating it into existing functions or by fundamentally reorganizing around AI models. He notes that ambitious companies are more likely to undertake the latter, comparing the diffusion of AI to the slow adoption of electricity in factories.
“I think a big change is going to be using AI versus re-organizing your entire company around AI.”
“And a great example of this is if you look at the diffusion of electricity as a technology. You know, it took 40 years for us to get from the inception of electricity to re-organizing factories. And that means, like, burning the buildings down and starting from scratch versus taking what was previously coal and simply swapping it with electricity.”
“So I do think that, like, the most ambitious companies are rethinking everything around the models, and those that are a little less ambitious or perhaps a little earlier, are thinking more about how do we give people in existing orgs, existing job functions, access to the technology.”