Town vs Instinct vs GrokBot | Why the AI Assistant Market Is Not a Bubble
Town co-founder and CEO Jean-Denis Grèze joins Harry Stebbings to discuss the emergence of agentic AI assistants and the battle between startups and Big Tech. Grèze breaks down why enterprise network effects, autonomous cross-silo data sharing, and ROI-driven pricing models create defensibility against frontier model providers. He also evaluates why building at machine speed compresses startup learning loops and explains why enterprise work assistants hold vastly superior unit economics over consumer tools.
- Startups running on frontier models have zero pricing power against foundation model suppliers who also build competing user-facing products. Read →
- AI assistants are a top-three priority for both Apple and Google over the next 12 months. Read →
- Jean-Denis Grèze predicts that within five years, individuals and enterprises will trust AI agents to decide what data to share autonomously without human intervention. Read →
- Town spends at least $75,000 per year per engineer on AI development software, splitting the budget primarily across tools like Cursor and Codex. Read →
- Town forces users to connect both their work email and calendar before entering the product, accepting an immediate 30% drop-off at signup. Read →