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Agent InfrastructureAnalysis · Greg Isenberg's Takes, Graded

Data Backs 4 of Greg Isenberg's 18 New Takes

Part two: Greg Isenberg posted 18 more San Francisco takes on Oct. 15, and published data backs four of them as hard trends.

9 min read · 2,064 words · 68 sources
A steel vernier caliper clamped across an orange ring part, measuring it on a dusty workshop surface
A steel vernier caliper clamped across an orange ring part, measuring it on a dusty workshop surface. Photo · Pexels
“Greg Isenberg posted 18 more San Francisco takes on Oct. 15. Published data backs four of them as hard trends. Is San Francisco a year ahead of everyone else?”

Greg Isenberg runs Late Checkout, which builds startups. On Oct. 15 he posted more San Francisco observations on X, a day after his first 21 takes1. By evening the post had 76,588 views1. His list skips its 10th item and repeats its first as the 16th, leaving 18 takes. Part one graded the first 21. The AILately.com Desk graded these 18 the same way: four hard trends and 14 soft ones.

How the Grades Work

The grades use Daniel Burrus's test, as part one did. Burrus, a futurist and the founder of Burrus Research, splits forecasts in two2. "A Hard Trend is a projection based on measurable, tangible, and fully predictable facts, events, or objects," Burrus wrote in 20152. "In contrast, a Soft Trend is a projection based on statistics that have the appearance of being tangible, fully predictable facts," he added2. His 2017 book, The Anticipatory Organization, builds on that method3. Each take also gets a weight from 1 to 5, for how much it matters to a founder.

Disclosure: I own an autographed copy of The Anticipatory Organization. I credit Burrus's outlook on futurism as crucial to my wild success as a web3 marketing executive over the past nine years.

4 of Greg Isenberg's 18 new takes grade as hard trends, and 14 grade as soft trends

Takes graded by the AILately.com Desk against published data, count of takes, Oct. 15, 2026

The magenta arc counts the takes graded as hard trends, future certainties in Daniel Burrus's terms; the blue arc counts the soft trends, his future maybes.

Data through Oct. 15, 2026.

Sources: Greg Isenberg on X [1]; Burrus Research [2]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Hard trends4
Soft trends14
Whole18

Takes 1 to 6: Words, Agents, Shoppers and Rates

1. Few Americans know what inference is

Soft trend, weight 2. The AILately.com Desk found zero polls on the word "inference," so Isenberg's 99.9% is his estimate1. Pew found 96% of U.S. adults know at least a little about AI4. Only 34% could say what LLM stands for, YouGov found5. The agents he names are spreading. Sensor Tower estimated more than 3.4 million U.S. and Canadian downloads of Meta's Muse by Sept. 246. Other trackers put the count between 2.3 million and 4.3 million6. Instinct raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation7. OpenAI launched dots on Sept. 298.

96% of U.S. adults know a little about AI, and 34% can say what LLM stands for

Share of U.S. adults, two national surveys, 2026

Each column is the share of adults who gave that answer in its own survey.

Pew and YouGov asked different questions of different samples.

Data through June 2026. Sample: U.S. adults in Pew Research Center and YouGov surveys.

Sources: Pew Research Center [4]; YouGov [5]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Know some AI96%
Can define LLM34%
A pink and green San Francisco bus wrapped in an ad that repeats the word INFERENCE along its roof and reads Own your p99 on its rear panel
A San Francisco bus carries an ad for Baseten that repeats the word INFERENCE beside the phrase Own your p99, photographed on June 29, 2026. Isenberg guesses 99.9% of Americans have yet to learn what the word means.Daderot / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

2. Manus wrote the agent blueprint

Hard trend, weight 3. Agents now work on computers in the cloud, and Manus was an early example. It launched on March 6, 2025, with a window that let users watch the agent work910. By December 2025 it had created more than 80 million virtual computers11. Manus passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue eight months after launch11. OpenAI and Meta shipped agents with computers of their own, and Anthropic and Google moved agents to the cloud12131415. Cognition's Devin ran in a sandboxed compute environment in March 2024, a year before Manus16. From Devin to Muse took 30 months.

"Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made," Xiao Hong, Manus's chief executive, wrote in December 202517. Meta was later forced to call off its $2 billion acquisition, TechCrunch reported18.

Six AI agents moved to the cloud or a sandbox in 30 months, from Devin to Muse

Launches of agents that work in the cloud or a sandboxed computer, by date

Each mark is a launch date; the magenta mark is Manus.

Data through Sept. 8, 2026.

Sources: SiliconANGLE [9]; TechCrunch [12]; Meta Newsroom [13]; Anthropic [14]; Google (The Keyword) [15]; Cognition [16]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
DateEvent
March 12, 2024Cognition's Devin
March 6, 2025Manus
July 17, 2025ChatGPT agent
Oct. 20, 2025Claude Code on the web
May 19, 2026Gemini Spark announced
Sept. 8, 2026Meta's Muse
Women sit at desks with display terminals and keyboards in a bright office room with large windows in 1970
Women work at the display terminals of Corda, KLM's automatic booking system, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, on March 11, 1970. Manus gives each agent task a computer of its own, in the cloud.Rob Mieremet / Anefo / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

3. Products sell twice

Hard trend, weight 4. AI already shapes the choice, and fewer shoppers let it pay. In Menlo Ventures' July survey, 50% of shoppers who use AI compared prices with it19. For 37%, its recommendation settled the final purchase decision19. Just 26% let it complete the purchase19. AI traffic to U.S. retail sites rose 693.4% in the 2025 holidays, Adobe found20. Most people still want the last word. In a YouGov poll, 56% would "not let an AI shop for them at all"5.

50% of shoppers who use AI compare prices with it, and 26% let it buy

Share of U.S. shoppers who use AI, by what they used it for, 2026

Each bar is the share of shoppers who use AI that took that step.

Data through July 2026. Sample: U.S. adults surveyed by Menlo Ventures with Morning Consult in July 2026.

Source: Menlo Ventures [19]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Compared prices50%
Decided on its pick37%
Let it complete the purchase26%

4. Data centers lose the public

Hard trend, weight 3. Opposition to local data centers grew in 2026. Gallup found 71% of Americans oppose AI data centers in their area21. Heatmap put opposition at 75%, and Annenberg at 61%, up 12 points from its February-March survey2223. At least 75 projects worth about $130 billion were blocked or delayed in the first quarter24. A man Isenberg spoke with said all data centers should be destroyed1. AI leaders now pitch cures. "Maybe with 10 gigawatts of compute, AI can figure out how to cure cancer," wrote Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive25.

Three polls find 61% to 75% of Americans oppose a data center near them

Share opposed to a new data center in their area, three national polls, 2026

Each bar is one poll's share of respondents opposed to a data center near where they live.

Each poll words the question differently, and Gallup asks about data centers built for AI.

Data through Aug. 2026.

Sources: Gallup [21]; Heatmap News [22]; Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania [23]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Heatmap75%
Gallup71%
Annenberg61%
A residential street in a Kansas neighborhood with "No Data Center" signs on a lawn, a porch and a pickup truck window
Signs reading "No Data Center" stand along a residential street in Kansas in May 2026. Gallup found 71% of Americans oppose AI data centers in their area.Catboy69 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

5. Hourly billing pays less

Soft trend, weight 4. Measured speedups fall short of 5x. AI raised support agents' issues resolved per hour by 15% in one study26. METR found experienced developers took 19% longer with AI in early 202527. That result is now out of date, METR says27. Freelance markets are shifting anyway. Fiverr's active buyers fell 21.9%, from 3.4 million to 2.7 million, in the year to June 3028. "Our second quarter results reflect a market that is changing faster than expected, driven by rapid AI adoption," said Micha Kaufman, Fiverr's chief executive28. On Upwork, freelancers doing AI work earn 34% more per hour29.

Fiverr's active buyers fell 21.9% in a year, from 3.4 million to 2.7 million

Annual active buyers on Fiverr, millions, as of June 30

Each column is Fiverr's count of buyers active in the year to June 30.

Data through June 30, 2026.

Source: Fiverr International Ltd. (SEC Form 6-K exhibit 99.1) [28]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
June 20253.4 million
June 20262.7 million
Two men in bowler hats and a younger man in a cap clock in at a wall-mounted time clock beside racks of time cards
Three men clock in at a factory time clock in the Netherlands at five to eight, in a photograph from 1920 to 1935. Isenberg says AI makes work faster, so billing by the hour pays less.Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

6. Bots fill the Slack channel

Soft trend, weight 3. Agents are spreading, and the AILately.com Desk found zero counts of bot messages in Slack. G2 found 66% of the business software buyers it surveyed run agents in limited or scaled production30. Of those, 38% run more than 100 agents30. KPMG found 62% of large U.S. companies building, deploying or developing agents, up from 53% a quarter earlier31. People still supervise them. In G2's survey, 31% of buyers said staff spend six or more hours a week "bot-sitting"30.

66% of business software buyers run AI agents in limited or scaled production

Share of business software buyers, G2's 2026 survey

The magenta arc is the share of surveyed buyers whose organizations run agents in limited or scaled production.

Data through Oct. 2026. Sample: Business software buyers surveyed for G2's 2026 AI agents report.

Source: G2 [30]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Agents in production66%
Whole100%

Takes 7 to 13: Studios, Software, Pay and Research

7. Product companies turn into studios

Soft trend, weight 2. Studios that build many startups are multiplying. A University of East Anglia study counted more than 1,000 venture studios, growing about 18% a year32. Isenberg has a stake here. He co-founded Late Checkout Agency, which sells companies an "AI Innovation Lab"33. Published counts cover studios alone, so product companies that become studios go uncounted.

8. Personal software outgrows IT

Hard trend, weight 4. Workers build their own software, and IT misses much of it. In a Retool survey of 817 customers, 60% had built software outside IT oversight in the past year34. Microsoft found 71% of UK employees had used unapproved consumer AI tools at work35. Among 600 breached organizations IBM studied, one in five reported a breach due to shadow AI36. Lovable users built more than 60 million projects by Aug. 12, up from 25 million in December3738.

Lovable users built more than 60 million projects by August, up from 25 million

Projects created on Lovable, millions, by the company's own count

Each column is Lovable's running total of projects at that date.

Lovable states both totals as minimums, and both are unaudited.

Data through Aug. 12, 2026.

Sources: Lovable [37]; Lovable [38]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Dec. 202525 million
Aug. 202660 million

9. Revenue per employee is the new brag

Soft trend, weight 3. A few startups post revenue per employee in the millions. Cursor passed $1 billion in annualized revenue with over 300 people, roughly $3.3 million each39. Gamma reached $100 million with 50 people, or $2 million each40. The median private SaaS company had $141,125 of annual recurring revenue per employee in SaaS Capital's 2026 survey41. Cursor's figure is about 24 times that. Two companies make a thin sample, and both report run rates.

Cursor's revenue per employee runs about 24 times the private SaaS median

Revenue run rate per employee, millions of dollars, 2025 and 2026

Each bar is a company's stated revenue divided by its stated headcount; the gray bar is the median private SaaS company.

Cursor and Gamma report run rates, a yearly pace; SaaS Capital reports a survey median.

Data through March 2026.

Sources: Cursor (Anysphere) [39]; Business Wire (copy on FinancialContent) [40]; SaaS Capital [41]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Cursor, about$3.30 million
Gamma$2.00 million
Median private SaaS company$0.14 million

11. Agents interview the customers

Soft trend, weight 3. Researchers expect AI stand-ins, called synthetic respondents, to take over surveys. In a Qualtrics survey of over 3,000 researchers, 71% said most research will use synthetic responses within three years42. Qualtrics sells such tools. Tests split. Verasight found AI personas missed a real poll by 4 to 23 percentage points on average43. Another study reached 90% of human test-retest reliability across 57 product surveys44.

12. Partnerships come back

Soft trend, weight 3. Executives say they will partner more. In KPMG's survey of 2,500 executives, 90% planned to grow partnerships and tech ecosystems over the next year45. Many also plan to build in-house: 78% of Retool's respondents expected to build more custom internal tools in 202634. CB Insights counted over 1,000 AI partnerships across the S&P 500 in 2025, up 23% in two years46. Nearly 68% were integrations, pilots or co-marketing, and 12% were client or vendor relationships46.

13. The very young get rich

Soft trend, weight 2. Mercor's three founders are each 22 and worth $2.2 billion, Forbes reported in March47. Such fortunes are rare. Forbes counted a record 35 billionaires under 30, and 12 of the 35 are self-made47. Successful founders skew middle-aged. The mean founder age among the fastest-growing 1 in 1,000 new U.S. firms is 45.0, a 2018 study found48.

12 of the 35 billionaires under 30 made their own fortunes

Billionaires under 30 on Forbes' 2026 list, count

The magenta arc counts the self-made billionaires under 30; the blue arc counts the rest, most of whom inherited.

Data through March 10, 2026.

Source: Forbes (Forbes Australia edition) [47]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Self-made12
Inherited or other23
Whole35

Takes 14 to 20: Payers, Graduates, Agents and Money

14. Few Americans pay for AI

Soft trend, weight 4. Counts of people paying for AI run from 3% to 55%, and Isenberg's 2% sits below all of them1. About 3% of Bank of America households paid for AI services as of February49. OpenAI's 50 million subscribers make about 5.6% of its 900 million weekly users worldwide50. Menlo found 55% of U.S. AI users pay for at least one AI product19. Each count measures a different group.

Counts of people paying for AI run from 3% to 55%, by who gets counted

Share paying for AI, three measures, February to July 2026

Each bar is one source's share of its own group that pays for AI.

Menlo surveys U.S. adults who use AI, OpenAI counts its users worldwide, and Bank of America counts its customers' households.

Data through July 2026.

Sources: Menlo Ventures [19]; Bank of America Institute [49]; OpenAI [50]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Menlo: U.S. AI users55.0%
OpenAI: weekly users5.6%
Bank of America households3.0%

15. Graduates should skip rules-bound desk work

Soft trend, weight 3. Young workers in AI-exposed jobs are losing ground. Stanford economists compared workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed jobs with less-exposed peers51. Employment in the exposed jobs sits 19% below where it would have been51. Recent graduates faced unemployment of about 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026, the New York Fed found52. The rules-bound part fits less well. Accounting graduates had 2.6% unemployment in 2024, computer science graduates 7.0% and computer engineering graduates 7.8%53.

Computer engineering grads faced 7.8% unemployment in 2024, triple accounting's 2.6%

Unemployment rate of recent college graduates by major, percent, 2024

Each column is the unemployment rate for recent graduates in that major.

Data through Dec. 2024.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York [53]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Comp. engineering7.8%
Computer science7.0%
Accounting2.6%
Rows of women and men at desks with typewriters and stacks of paper fill a large Navy Department office
Navy yeomen and civilian clerks work at rows of typewriters in a Navy Department typing pool in Washington, D.C., about 1918 to 1919. Isenberg tells graduates to steer toward careers less bound by documents and rules.U.S. Navy (NHHC photo NH 52909), uploaded by AnalyticalHistoricalHobbyist / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

17. Agents start paying

Soft trend, weight 4. Payment firms shipped agent checkout in 2025, and shoppers have moved slower. Mastercard announced Agent Pay on April 29, 2025, and Visa followed on April 305455. ChatGPT added checkout through Stripe on Sept. 2956. By Dec. 18, Visa counted "hundreds" of agent-initiated transactions57. OpenAI deprioritized Instant Checkout on March 24, 2026, six months after it launched and 11 months after Mastercard's Agent Pay58.

Agent checkout went from launch to OpenAI's pullback in 11 months

Dated steps in agent payments, April 2025 to March 2026

Each mark is a dated launch or retreat; the magenta mark is OpenAI's pullback.

Data through March 24, 2026.

Sources: Mastercard [54]; Visa (Business Wire release) [55]; Stripe Newsroom [56]; Visa (Business Wire release) [57]; TechCrunch [58]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
DateEvent
April 29, 2025Mastercard Agent Pay
April 30, 2025Visa Intelligent Commerce
Sept. 29, 2025Checkout in ChatGPT
Dec. 18, 2025Visa counts hundreds of agent buys
March 24, 2026OpenAI deprioritizes checkout
An ornate brass cash register on a shop counter in front of a wall of numbered drawers in a Hungarian grocery
A brass cash register stands on the counter of a grocery in Hungary around 1900. Isenberg expects AI agents to pay for things, perhaps by 2027.FOTO:Fortepan, donor Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

18. Agents act first

Soft trend, weight 4. Assistants now offer help before you ask. OpenAI previewed ChatGPT Pulse on Sept. 25, 2025, and Google announced proactive prompts for Pixel 11 on Aug. 12, 20265960. Each still waits for a tap. Pixel offers to lock down a reservation "with just a tap"60. Menlo found 32% of AI users "have let AI act on their behalf without final approval"19.

19. The ten-year lag shrinks to one

Soft trend, weight 3. Isenberg quotes Chris Dixon's 2013 line. "What the smartest people do on the weekends is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years," Dixon wrote61. Isenberg puts the lag at 12 months now1. Consumers moved fast: working-age U.S. adults using AI rose from 45% in August 2024 to 62% in May 202662. Businesses moved slower. Only 19.8% used AI as of May 3, 2026, the Census Bureau found63.

62% of working-age U.S. adults use AI, and 19.8% of businesses do

Share using AI, U.S. adults and U.S. businesses, May 2026

The first column is the share of adults using AI; the second is the share of businesses using AI.

The St. Louis Fed surveys working-age adults, and the Census Bureau surveys businesses.

Data through May 2026.

Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, On the Economy [62]; U.S. Census Bureau (America Counts) [63]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
ItemValue
Adults62.0%
Businesses19.8%

20. This window favors builders

Soft trend, weight 3. Money and cheap compute favor AI builders. Roughly 50% of global venture funding in 2025 went to AI, Crunchbase found64. The cost of a given level of AI performance falls about 13 times a year, Epoch AI estimates65. Funding is concentrated. OpenAI and Anthropic took 43% of global startup funding in the first half of 202666. AI's share of U.S. deal value fell from 88.4% in the first quarter to 84.1% in the second and 65.9% in the third67.

AI's share of U.S. venture deal value fell from 88.4% to 65.9% in two quarters

AI's share of U.S. venture deal value by quarter, percent, 2026

The line is AI's share of each quarter's U.S. venture deal value.

Data through Sept. 30, 2026.

Source: PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association [67]. Chart by The AILately.com Desk.

The numbers behind this chart
PeriodValue
Q188.4%
Q284.1%
Q365.9%

The Case For and the Case Against

Isenberg reads San Francisco as a year ahead. "It feels like that length of time isnt 10 years anymore, its 12 months," Isenberg wrote1. Four of his 18 takes grade as hard trends, led by agents that work in the cloud and software built outside IT1634.

Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, computer scientists at Princeton, make the case for patience. "Thus, the speed of diffusion is inherently limited by the speed at which not only individuals, but also organizations and institutions, can adapt to technology," they wrote68. About 62% of working-age adults use AI, against 19.8% of businesses6263.

What Each Side Needs

Isenberg's case needs his soft takes to harden within a year, with agents completing purchases at scale. Narayanan and Kapoor's case needs business adoption to rise slowly from 19.8%63.

What to watch

  • Visa's next count of agent purchases, after "hundreds" in December 202557.
  • The Census Bureau's next business AI rate, now 19.8%63.
  • Lovable's next project count, past 60 million in August37.

Sources

  1. Greg Isenberg, "More SF observations:," X, Oct. 15, 2026, https://x.com/gregisenberg/status/2110777852589191378
  2. Daniel Burrus, "The Anticipatory Organization™," Burrus Research, May 13, 2015, https://www.burrus.com/2015/05/the-anticipatory-organization/
  3. Daniel Burrus, "The Anticipatory Organization," Greenleaf Book Group, Oct. 10, 2017, https://greenleafbookgroup.com/titles/the-anticipatory-organization
  4. Jeffrey Gottfried, William Bishop, Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio, Eugenie Park and Colleen McClain, "What do Americans think AI is?," Pew Research Center, June 17, 2026, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/06/17/what-do-americans-think-ai-is/
  5. Brian Reitz, "How do Americans use AI in 2026? [Reality checks ft. Taylor Lorenz & Gina King, live at HumanX]," YouGov, April 24, 2026, https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54591-reality-checks-talkshow-humanx-ai-taylor-lorenz-gina-king
  6. Sarah Perez, "Meta is putting its muscle behind Muse as the AI app takes off," TechCrunch, Sept. 25, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/25/meta-is-putting-its-muscle-behind-muse-as-the-ai-app-takes-off/
  7. Sarah Perez, "Viral AI agent Instinct raises $1B Series C at a $10B valuation," TechCrunch, Sept. 28, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/28/viral-ai-agent-instinct-raises-1b-series-c-at-a-10b-valuation/
  8. John Power, "OpenAI launches 'dots,' personal AI assistant 'built to handle everything'," Al Jazeera, Sept. 30, 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/30/openai-launches-dots-personal-ai-assistant-built-to-handle-everything
  9. Mike Wheatley, "China's new AI agent Manus gets global attention for its autonomous smarts," SiliconANGLE, March 9, 2025, https://siliconangle.com/2025/03/09/chinas-new-ai-agent-manus-gets-global-attention-autonomous-smarts/
  10. Caiwei Chen, "Everyone in AI is talking about Manus. We put it to the test.," MIT Technology Review, March 11, 2025, https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/11/1113133/manus-ai-review/
  11. Manus, "Manus Update: $100M ARR, $125M revenue run-rate," Manus, Dec. 17, 2025, https://manus.im/blog/manus-100m-arr
  12. Maxwell Zeff, "OpenAI launches a general purpose agent in ChatGPT," TechCrunch, July 17, 2025, https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/17/openai-launches-a-general-purpose-agent-in-chatgpt/
  13. Meta, "Introducing Muse: The World's First Personal AI Agent Built for Everyone," Meta Newsroom, Sept. 8, 2026, https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent/
  14. Anthropic, "Claude Code on the web," Anthropic, Oct. 20, 2025, https://claude.com/blog/claude-code-on-the-web
  15. Josh Woodward, "The Gemini app becomes more agentic, delivering proactive, 24/7 help," Google (The Keyword), May 19, 2026, https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/next-evolution-gemini-app/
  16. Scott Wu, "Introducing Devin, the first AI software engineer," Cognition, March 12, 2024, https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin
  17. Xiao Hong, "Manus Joins Meta for Next Era of Innovation," Manus, Dec. 29, 2025, https://manus.im/blog/manus-joins-meta-for-next-era-of-innovation
  18. Kate Park, "China's Manus raises over $500M in first funding round since split with Meta," TechCrunch, Oct. 8, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/08/chinas-manus-raises-over-500m-in-first-funding-round-since-split-with-meta/
  19. Shawn Carolan, Amy Wu Martin and Sam Borja, "2026: The State of Consumer AI," Menlo Ventures, Sept. 16, 2026, https://menlovc.com/perspective/2026-the-state-of-consumer-ai/
  20. Adobe, "Adobe: Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record $257.8 Billion Online with Consumers Embracing Generative AI Tools," Adobe, Jan. 7, 2026, https://news.adobe.com/news/2026/01/adobe-holiday-shopping-season
  21. Jeffrey M. Jones, "Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area," Gallup, May 13, 2026, https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx
  22. Robinson Meyer, "Exclusive: 75% of Americans Now Oppose Local Data Center Development," Heatmap News, Aug. 19, 2026, https://heatmap.news/daily/data-center-opposition-poll-collapse
  23. Annenberg Public Policy Center, "Opposition to Local Data Centers Rises Sharply, Annenberg Survey Finds," Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Aug. 11, 2026, https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/opposition-to-local-data-centers-rises-sharply-annenberg-survey-finds/
  24. Data Center Watch, "Q1 2026: Data Center Watch Report," Data Center Watch, March 31, 2026, https://www.datacenterwatch.org/q1-2026
  25. Sam Altman, "Abundant Intelligence," Sam Altman, Sept. 23, 2025, https://blog.samaltman.com/abundant-intelligence
  26. Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond, "Generative AI at Work," arXiv, Nov. 6, 2024, https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11771
  27. Joel Becker, Nate Rush, Beth Barnes and David Rein, "Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity," METR, July 10, 2025, https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
  28. Fiverr, "Fiverr Announces Second Quarter 2026 Results," Fiverr International Ltd. (SEC Form 6-K exhibit 99.1), July 29, 2026, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1762301/000117891326003624/exhibit_99-1.htm
  29. Upwork, "Upwork's Future Workforce Index 2026: How AI is Redefining the Value of Work as Skilled Freelancing Accelerates," Upwork (GlobeNewswire release, read on Finviz mirror), July 14, 2026, https://finviz.com/news/367958/upworks-future-workforce-index-2026-how-ai-is-redefining-the-value-of-work-as-skilled-freelancing-accelerates
  30. Tim Sanders, "New G2 Research: AI Agents Have Moved From Pilot to Production. Now Comes the Distrust Tax.," G2, Oct. 14, 2026, https://company.g2.com/news/2026-ai-agents-report
  31. KPMG, "AI's Value Story Sharpens as Organizations Gain Confidence in Governance, Accountability and Workforce Adoption," KPMG (U.S. newsroom), Sept. 24, 2026, https://kpmg.com/us/en/media/news/q3-ai-pulse-2026.html
  32. UEA Communications (research by Dr Davide Viglialoro), "The business of building businesses," University of East Anglia, Sept. 23, 2026, https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/news/article/the-business-of-building-businesses
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Cite this piece

Ryan Elliott Dennis, "Data Backs 4 of Greg Isenberg's 18 New Takes," AI Lately, Oct 15, 2026, https://ailately.com/articles/greg-isenberg-18-more-takes-graded

Tags: Greg Isenberg · Late Checkout · Daniel Burrus · hard trends · soft trends · AI agents · agentic commerce · data centers · shadow AI · synthetic research · venture funding · AI adoption

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