The 2026 AI Forecast: Foundation Models, IPOs, and Robotics with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil

The 2026 AI Forecast: Foundation Models, IPOs, and Robotics with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil

Author: Conviction December 20, 2025 Duration: 40:46
Pundits are screaming about the so-called “AI bubble.” But historically slow-to-adopt industries like medicine and law are actually embracing AI at an unprecedented speed. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil look ahead to 2026, breaking down the major trends that will define the next era of AI technologies. They explore the future of AI foundational models, predicting breakthroughs in solving complex scientific problems. They share competing views on the timeline for robotics and self-driving cars, debating whether startups have a chance for survival or if incumbents will dominate. Elad and Sarah also discuss the return of tech IPOs and M&As, forecast a new wave of AI consumer agent software, and explore why consumer product innovation has been slower than expected. Finally, the two offer bold non-AI predictions for the new year, including the acceleration of defense tech startups and the second-order underrated impacts of GLP-1 drugs on biohacking. Plus, stick around to hear predictions on what’s next for AI in 2026 from some of tech’s biggest names and industry leaders. We hear from Jensen Huang (Founder/CEO NVIDIA), Arvind Jain (Founder/CEO, Glean), Winston Weinberg (Founder/CEO, Harvey), Scott Wu (Founder/CEO, Cognition), Raiza Martin (Founder/CEO Huxe), Zach Ziegler (Founder/CTO, Open Evidence), Aaron Levie (Founder/CEO, Box), Misha Laskin (Founder/CEO, ReflectionAI), Noam Brown (Research Scientist, OpenAI), Joshua Meier (Founder/CEO Chai Discovery), Bryan Johnson (Living Man, Don't Die), Sholto Douglas (Member of the Technical Staff, Anthropic), Ben & Asher Spector (Stanford PhDs) and Dylan Patel (Founder/CEO SemiAnalysis). Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil  Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:43 – AI Predictions for 2026 04:40 – Adoption of AI in Professional Fields 07:17 – Robotics and Self-Driving Cars 08:25 – Robotics: Incumbents vs. Startups 13:59 – Future of IPOs and M&A in AI 16:42 – Challenges in Consumer AI Innovation 21:08 – Funding of Neo Labs, RL Research 26:28 – Predictions for 2026 Beyond AI 26:44 – The Future of Defense and Technology 28:23 – Biohacking and Peptide Therapies 30:37 – 2026 Prediction from AI Industry Leaders 40:46 – Conclusion

Elad Gil and Sarah Guo guide conversations in No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups that cut straight to the core of what's happening now. This isn't about abstract futures; it's grounded in dialogues with the very people building and shaping the field-leading AI engineers, pioneering researchers, and the founders turning theory into reality. Each episode tackles the pressing, often daunting questions that define this technological inflection point. You'll hear them explore the practical pathways and hurdles toward AGI, debate which industries are genuinely poised for transformation, and examine how the state-of-the-art in research translates into real-world products and societal shifts. The discussions naturally span the impact on commerce, culture, and the very structure of how we live and work. Produced by Conviction, this podcast serves as an essential, clear-eyed resource for anyone looking to move beyond the hype and understand the forces driving the AI revolution. Sarah Guo, a startup investor, and Elad Gil bring their direct experience to these conversations, ensuring every interview provides substantive insight you can use.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
Podcast Episodes
Erik Bernhardsson on Creating Tools That Make AI Feel Effortless [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:36
Today on No Priors, Elad chats with Erik Bernhardsson, founder and CEO of Modal Labs, a platform simplifying ML workflows by providing a serverless infrastructure designed to streamline deployment, scaling, and developme…
The Best of 2024 with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:07
2024 has been a year of transformative technological progress, marked by conversations that have reshaped our understanding of AI's evolution and what lies ahead. Throughout the year, Sarah and Elad have had the privileg…
Revolutionizing Customer Success with Agency’s Elias Torres [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:18
Today on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Elias Torres, CEO and founder of Agency, an AI agent for customer success teams. Elias shares his journey from growing up in Nicaragua to founding several companies, leading engin…
How Diamond Cooling Could Power the Future of AI, with Akash Systems [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:21
In this episode of No Priors, Sarah sits down with Felix Ejeckam and Ty Mitchell, founders of Akash Systems, a company pioneering diamond-based cooling technology for semiconductors used in space applications and large-s…
Model Plateaus and Enterprise AI Adoption with Cohere's Aidan Gomez [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:15
In this episode of No Priors, Sarah is joined by Aidan Gomez, cofounder and CEO of Cohere. Aidan reflects on his journey to co-authoring the groundbreaking 2017 paper, “Attention is All You Need,” during his internship,…
AI and the Future of Math, with DeepMind’s AlphaProof Team [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:21
In this week’s episode of No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with the Google DeepMind team behind AlphaProof, Laurent Sartran, Rishi Mehta, and Thomas Hubert. AlphaProof is a new reinforcement learning-based system for f…