Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is betting that artificial intelligence and a generation of users raised on Roblox and Minecraft are about to spark a renaissance in consumer app building. Josh Elman, a veteran product leader who helped shape Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Robinhood, joined a16z as a partner focused on consumer technology and AI, arguing that the conditions for a major consumer software wave are finally in place.

Why Are Consumer Apps Getting a Second Wind?

For years, the consumer technology space felt stagnant. Elman explains that this wasn't because innovation had stopped, but because "the worlds that consumers wanted to inhabit were all pretty built out." Instagram works well as a scaled social network. The iPhone works well as a remote control for your digital life. But two major shifts have changed that equation entirely.

Elman

First, AI has fundamentally altered what ordinary users can do with software. ChatGPT introduced millions of people to open-ended conversations with AI, and that's only the beginning of the growth opportunity. Second, a new cohort of Gen Alpha consumers expects to build and customize everything. They grew up in Roblox and Minecraft, where creation and personalization are the default. They have no preconceived limitations about what an app is or what they can do with it.

"The models are finally ready. Costs of inference are getting optimized with open models, and even on-device models. And when I first experienced OpenClaw earlier this year, I had the epiphany that it isn't the models that matter, but the harnesses, loops, and context which will lead to so many new opportunities ahead," said Josh Elman.

Josh Elman, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz

What Kinds of Consumer Products Are Ripe for Reinvention?

Elman points to several categories where AI and natural language interfaces can fundamentally reshape how people interact with software. These include the following areas where new world-building opportunities are emerging:

• Search and Discovery: Better on-device search with Siri and contextual news and suggestions in Robinhood show how AI can make search much better for ordinary users by understanding their needs in plain language.
• Financial Management: Apps like Robinhood started as simple stock trading tools that people derided as toys, but evolved into full-fledged financial platforms for tens of millions of users.
• Entertainment and Social: Musical.ly was just a way for teenagers to post music videos until it became TikTok, providing entertainment to billions of people worldwide.
• Shopping, Travel, and Communication: Elman expects billions of people will soon discover new ways to shop, manage their money, arrange travel, and connect with friends and family through AI-powered interfaces.

The pattern Elman has observed across his career is that great products often start out looking like toys. Twitter was dismissed as a dumb site where people posted what they had for breakfast, yet it became one of the most important information networks in the world. Robinhood faced skepticism from people who thought no one would ever use it with real money. These early dismissals are often a sign that something genuinely new is emerging.

How to Identify and Build the Next Wave of Consumer AI Apps

For founders and operators looking to capitalize on this moment, Elman outlines a practical framework for thinking about consumer AI product development:

• Start with a Spark: Look for a new spark of consumer behavior that opens a door to a brand new world of possibility that isn't built yet. This is the foundation of world-building.
• Map the Messy Middle: The most fun part of the journey is laying down the rails, mapping out the towns, and setting the foundations for a durable product and company. This is where early users show you what's in the world, and you get to make it come to life.
• Embrace Early Skepticism: Love the ones building something that many people will deride as just a toy, but the team knows they have a bigger vision they can't wait to bring to the world. This is often a sign of genuine innovation.
• Focus on User Patterns and Growth Loops: Figure out the user patterns, the feature hierarchies, the growth loops, and the development practices that will define the next era of consumer software for billions of people.

Elman's role throughout his career has been in this "messy middle," not blazing the very first trail discovering new consumer behaviors, nor operating and scaling worlds once they're built out. Instead, he's focused on the critical phase where early traction becomes a durable platform. It's this phase where he believes the most exciting work happens in the current AI moment.

The setup for a new consumer software wave is now in place. Models are ready, inference costs are dropping, and a generation of users expects to be able to customize and build anything they want. For a16z and its portfolio, the message is clear: the world-building doors are open again, and there's a lot of work to do in building out these new worlds and mapping their new towns.