Sequoia: The Evolution of Generative AI - #31
Series “Laboratory”
Introduction
Welcome back to Laboratory, our deep-dive series dissecting the forces charting the future of AI. This week, we turn from rapid-fire text generation to the emerging paradigm of “slow reasoning”—a shift captured in recent Sequoia publication “Generative AI’s Act o1”, published by Sonya Huang, Pat Grady, and o1. In this exclusive feature, we explore how advanced models are no longer just matching patterns but rather pausing to “think,” unleashing a new generation of agentic applications tackling the kinds of problems we once thought only humans could solve.
Here’s what we’ll be unpacking:
From Fast to Slow: How generative AI is evolving beyond quick responses to embrace deliberate reasoning at inference time—and why that matters for innovation.
The o1 Model: OpenAI’s groundbreaking 2024 release that pauses and considers before responding, setting a new bar for “general reasoning.”
Custom Cognitive Architectures: How routing tools, vector databases, and multi-model frameworks are forging the AI solutions needed for messy, real-world challenges.
Service-as-a-Software: The shift from selling software licenses to selling outcomes—and how it’s transforming trillion-dollar service sectors.
Incumbents vs. Challengers: Why existing giants and emerging disruptors alike must navigate a monumental engineering effort to stay competitive.
Join us as we unravel the mechanics of deliberate, inference-time reasoning—a breakthrough poised not only to broaden AI’s capabilities but to reshape the competitive landscape for years to come.