a16z's "Major Vision for 2026: Part 1"

Author: a16z New Media   Translation: Block unicorn

As investors, our responsibility is to gain a deep understanding of every corner of the technology industry to grasp future development trends. Therefore, every December, we invite investment teams to share what they believe is a major vision that technology companies will need to address in the coming year.

Today, we will share insights from the Infrastructure, Growth, Bio + Health, and Speedrun teams. Stay tuned for other teams' presentations tomorrow.

Infrastructure

Jennifer Li: How Startups Can Navigate the Chaos of Multimodal Data

Unstructured, multimodal data has always been the biggest bottleneck for enterprises, and also their greatest untapped treasure.

Bio + Health

Julie Yoo: Healthy Monthly Active Users (MAU)

By 2026, a new healthcare customer segment will become the focus: "Healthy Monthly Active Users."

Traditional healthcare systems primarily serve three user groups: (a) "Sick Monthly Active Users": those with fluctuating needs and high costs; (b) "Sick Daily Active Users*": such as patients requiring long-term intensive care; and (c) "Healthy Young Active Users*": relatively healthy individuals who rarely seek medical attention. Healthy young active users face the risk of transitioning into sick monthly/daily active users, and preventative care can mitigate this transition. However, our treatment-focused healthcare reimbursement system rewards treatment rather than prevention, thus proactive health checkups and monitoring services are not prioritized, and insurance rarely covers these services.

Now, a new demographic of healthy monthly active users has emerged: these are not ill, but want to regularly monitor and understand their health—and they are likely to be the largest segment of the consumer base. We anticipate a wave of companies—including AI-native startups and upgraded versions of existing businesses—will begin offering recurring services to serve this user group. With the potential of AI to reduce the cost of healthcare, the emergence of new health insurance products focused on prevention, and consumers increasingly willing to pay for subscription models out of pocket, "healthy monthly active users" represent the next highly promising customer segment in the healthcare technology space: they are engaged, data-driven, and prevention-focused. Speedrun (the name of an investment team within a16z)

Jon Lai: World Models Shine in Narrative

By 2026, AI-driven world models will revolutionize storytelling through interactive virtual worlds and the digital economy. Technologies such as Marble (World Labs) and Genie 3 (DeepMind) are already capable of generating complete 3D environments based on text prompts, allowing users to explore them as if in a game. As creators adopt these tools, entirely new forms of storytelling will emerge, potentially evolving into "generative Minecraft," where players can co-create vast and ever-evolving universes. These worlds can combine game mechanics with natural language programming; for example, a player could issue a command like, "Create a paintbrush that turns everything I touch pink."