The AI agent market map
We mined the CB Insights database to map 170+ AI agent startups
across 26 categories. We also provide an outlook on AI agents’
progress, limitations, and future directions.
“Digital coworkers” are moving from concept to reality.
While AI copilots have already made inroads across industries, the next evolution —
autonomous agents with greater decision-making scope — is arriving quickly. AI agent
startups raised $3.8B in 2024 (nearly tripling 2023’s total), and every big tech player is
already developing AI agents or offering the tooling for them.
Implications for enterprises will be far-reaching, from altering workforce composition
(with new hybrid teams of humans and AI agents) to maximizing operational efficiency
through full automation of routine tasks.
Below we identify 170+ promising startups developing AI agent infrastructure and
applications.
CBI customers: Track 250+ AI agent companies
We selected companies for inclusion based on Mosaic health scores (500+) and/or
funding recency (since 2022). We included private companies only and organized them
according to their primary focus. This market map is not exhaustive of the space.
Want to be considered for future AI agent research? Brief our analysts to ensure we have
the most up-to-date data on your company.
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Outlook on AI agents
Fully autonomous agents remain limited due to issues pertaining to reliability, reasoning,
and access. Most agent applications today operate with “guardrails” — within a
constrained architecture where, for example, the LLM-based system follows a decision
tree to complete tasks.
Agents featured on this map include some combination of the following components:
Reasoning: Foundation models that enable complex reasoning, language
understanding, and decision-making. These models evaluate information and form the
cognitive core of the agent.
Memory: Systems that store, organize, and retrieve both short-term contextual
information and long-term knowledge.
Tool use: Integration capabilities that allow agents to interact with external
applications, APIs, databases, the internet, and other software.
Planning: The agent’s architecture for breaking down complex tasks into more
manageable steps, reflecting on performance, and adapting as necessary.
We expect more startups to move up the scale of autonomy as AI capabilities advance.
Improvements in reasoning and memory will enable more sophisticated decision-making,
adaptability, and task execution.
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For example, in September 2024, legal AI startup Harvey announced that OpenAI’s o1
reasoning model, supplemented with domain-specific knowledge and data, was enabling
it to build legal agents. The company, which raised $300M at a $3B valuation in February
2025, has doubled its sales force in the last 6 months, indicating rising market demand.
While the above market map highlights the private landscape (with a focus on enterprise
applications), tech giants and incumbents are also launching agents. We predict big tech
and leading LLM developers will own general-purpose AI agents, but there are many
opportunities for smaller, specialized players.
Looking ahead, watch for new form factors outside of the copilot/chatbot interface that
will push the boundaries of what an “agent” is. Early indications of this include “AI-native”
workspaces — tools and platforms built from the ground up around AI capabilities, rather
than layering AI features on top of a traditional product. For instance:
Eve’s legal platform aims to automate aspects of the whole case lifecycle (from case
intake to drafting).
Hebbia’s Matrix product builds spreadsheets that mine information from files (in rows)
and deliver answers to questions (in columns), proactively discovering, organizing, and
surfacing data.
With its Dia product, The Browser Company is exploring web browsing interfaces that
can summarize content, automate repetitive web tasks, and even anticipate next
actions.
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Category overview
AI agent infrastructure
This segment covers companies building agent-specific infrastructure. (We excluded
general genAI infrastructure markets like foundation models and vector databases from
the map.)
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
A diverse ecosystem of tools has emerged to support agents’ development. These range
from memory frameworks like Letta that enable persistent, retrievable memory across
interactions; to tools that allow agents to take action via integration (e.g., Composio),
authentication (e.g., Anon), and browser automation (e.g., Browserbase).
Another set of companies is giving agents more utility across payments (which includes
companies developing crypto wallets for agents as well as virtual cards) and voice
(development platforms and tools for testing AI voice applications as well as speech
models).
Meanwhile, demand for simplified, comprehensive deployment options is driving the rise
of AI agent development platforms — the most crowded infrastructure market on our
map.
LLM developers including Cohere (with its North AI workspace) and Mistral have
launched their own agent development frameworks, while Amazon, Microsoft, Google,
and Nvidia all offer AI agent development tooling. With many enterprises favoring
established vendors due to lower risk, big tech companies have significant advantages
here.
TRUST & PERFORMANCE
Concerns around reliability and security have helped establish a market for agent
evaluation & observability tools. Early-stage companies are targeting applications such as
automated testing (e.g., Haize Labs) and performance tracking (e.g., Langfuse).
Multi-agent systems, where specialized sub-agents work together to complete tasks, also
show promise in improving accuracy. Insight Partners-backed CrewAI’s multi-agent
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orchestration platform is reportedly already used by 40% of the Fortune 500.
Vendors are also tackling reliability concerns directly. Based on our briefings with 20+ AI
agent startups in Q1’25, companies are using 5 primary methods to build user trust:
1. Transparency
2. Human oversight
3. Technical safeguards
4. Security & compliance
5. Continuous improvement
Horizontal applications & job functions
Horizontal AI agent startups make up nearly half of the map and overall landscape.
This segment primarily features startups targeting enterprises, with industry-agnostic
applications across job functions like HR/recruiting, marketing, and security operations.
Companies in the productivity & personal assistants market, including OpenAI with its
Operator agent, are targeting consumers and employees directly.
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The AI agent markets with the most traction — based on companies’ median Mosaic
health scores — are customer service and software development (which includes coding
and code review & testing agents). These markets are also among the most crowded due
to the value agents bring to well-defined workflows and testable environments.
We see this reflected in adoption, particularly at the customer service layer: Among 64
organizations surveyed by CB Insights in December 2024, two-thirds indicated they are
using or will be using AI agents in customer support in the next 12 months.
Overall, horizontal AI agent applications are more commercially mature compared to the
infrastructure and vertical segments, with over two-thirds of the market deploying or
scaling their solutions based on CBI Commercial Maturity scores.
Vertical (industry-specific) applications
We expect increasing verticalization as startups carve out niches by solving industry-
specific customer problems, especially in areas with strict regulatory scrutiny and data
sensitivity.
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This category features companies catering to industries including:
Financial services & insurance: The most crowded vertical category on the map with
11 companies, startups here are targeting a variety of finserv workflows such as
financial research (Boosted.ai and Wokelo), insurance sales & support (Alltius and
Indemn), and wealth advisory prospecting & operations (Finny AI and Powder).
Healthcare: Solutions in this market aim to reduce the volume of manual tasks for
healthcare professionals across use cases like clinical documentation, revenue cycle
operations, call centers, and virtual triage. Solutions from companies like Thoughtful AI
(revenue cycle operations) and Hippocratic AI (staffing marketplace) are targeting end-
to-end healthcare workflows.
Industrials: These companies look to optimize processes and equipment — including
control systems, robots, and other industrial machines — without relying on consistent
human intervention. For example, Composabl launched an agent platform in May 2024
that uses LLMs to create skills and goals for agents that can control industrial
equipment. Public companies like Palantir are also active in this space. Learn more in
our industrial AI agents & copilots market map.
RELATED RESEARCH
What’s next for AI agents? 4 trends to watch in 2025
The enterprise AI agents & copilots market map
The Multi-Agent AI Outlook
Future of the workforce: How AI agents will transform enterprise workflows
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