Forbes’ AI 50 honors the privately-held startups developing the most promising business use cases of artificial intelligence. The list is compiled in collaboration with data partners Sequoia and Meritech Capital. The sixth annual edition saw an influx of list newcomers that are supplying the tools or developing the applications to bring generative AI’s technical advances to the enterprise.
Creation of the annual list begins with an open call for nominations and, with the help of data partner Meritech Capital, outreach to thousands of possible contenders. Companies do not pay a fee for consideration. Rather, applicants share both qualitative information — such as business models, technical talent and how they’re building and using AI-enabled technology — and quantitative figures such as fundraising, valuation and revenue history. Applicants have the option to submit certain data confidentially. Forbes encourages companies to submit diversity data, though this component is optional. Forbes, Meritech and Sequoia additionally identify a small group of standout startups which did not submit applications, but which deserve further consideration; for these companies, we evaluate publicly available information, including data from PitchBook, Crunchbase and LinkedIn.
Starting last year, we expanded eligibility from companies in North America to all privately-held companies globally. This year, Forbes received 1,932 submissions — more than double last year’s tally of 796 — making a spot on the AI 50 far more competitive than it has ever been.
These submissions are reviewed quantitatively through a first-pass algorithm developed by Konstantine Buhler, a partner at Sequoia Capital. It scores companies based on three rough criteria: financial performance, company culture and diversity. The algorithm factors information from the submissions, including revenue gains, customer statistics, historical funding and valuation, as well as publicly available data, such as Glassdoor reviews and LinkedIn insights to generate a holistic ranking of all the companies. Non-disclosure of data does not negatively impact a company’s application, but disclosing that information may help the company stand out among its peers.
The top 120 finalists are vetted by a group of expert AI judges with pedigrees at leading public companies or research institutions (listed below) who review more qualitative considerations like technical potential and strength of talent. Then the top 60 among them are passed on to a group of AI investors with expertise in the startup ecosystem. They review the candidates, providing insider feedback based on business performance and competitive landscape (judges who directly invested in a finalist are recused from evaluating that company).
Forbes editors then compiled the top 50 most compelling companies into the final AI 50, which is ordered alphabetically, and not ranked.
Expert Judges
Tanya Berger-Wolf
Tanya Berger-Wolf is a professor of computer science engineering; electrical and computer engineering; and evolution, ecology and organismal biology at the Ohio State University. She is also the director of the school’s Translational Data Analytics Institute, and the principal investigator and director of the Imageomics Institute, which uses data science to extract new biological data from images of organisms. Berger-Wolf cofounded and serves as the director of Wild Me, a nonprofit using AI for wildlife conservation.
Kevin Chan
Kevin Chan is Meta’s global policy campaign strategies director. Prior to this role, he was the global director and head of public policy for Meta in Canada. He also co-leads a working group of the AI Alliance, a group of companies, universities, government organizations, and nonprofits devoted to advancing innovative and responsible AI use.
Sonia Chernova
Sonia Chernova is an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where she directs the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab. She serves as the lead for the NSF AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups (AI-CARING), whose mission is to develop the next generation of personalized collaborative AI systems that improve the quality of life and independence of aging adults living at home.
Vincent Conitzer
Vincent Conitzer is a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directs the Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab, which studies foundations of game theory for advanced, autonomous AI agents. He is also a professor of computer science and philosophy at the University of Oxford, where he is the head of technical AI engagement at the Institute for Ethics in AI.
Thomas Dohmke
Thomas Dohmke is CEO of GitHub, a Microsoft subsidiary. He has overseen the launch of the world’s first at-scale AI developer tool, GitHub Copilot and its successor Copilot X. Dohmke previously cofounded HockeyApp and led the company as CEO through its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014. At Github, he was a vice president and chief product officer prior to taking the helm.
Joe Edwards
Joe Edwards is a director of product marketing at UiPath, an AI-powered workforce automation company with a $12 billion market capitalization. Prior to UiPath, Joe was a program manager within the U.S. Treasury Department where he led a team that built the agency’s first apps for mobile check deposit and digital ticketing.
R. David Edelman
R. David Edelman is a technologist, investor, and former policymaker. He has been a global growth and public strategy lead for various startups; a venture capital investor in deep tech companies; and a special assistant to President Barack Obama on issues of the digital economy and national security. In that role, he coauthored the federal government’s foundational AI strategy.
Jayesh Govindarajan
Jayesh Govindarajan is the senior vice president of AI and machine learning at Salesforce, where he leads the engineering and applied science teams that are responsible for the company’s major AI initiatives including the Einstein suite of products. Prior to Salesforce, he was the founder of an AI-powered data science startup called MinHash which was acquired by Salesforce in 2015 for an undisclosed amount.
Anantha Kancherla
Anantha Kancherla is an engineering director at Meta, where he recently led the AI platform team that has built machine learning framework PyTorch and launched the AI Research SuperCluster, among the fastest AI clusters in the world. Prior to Meta, he oversaw self-driving software (both in-car and cloud infrastructure) for Lyft’s self-driving car efforts. Kancherla started his career at Microsoft specializing in 3D graphics, working on DirectX and Windows.
Anna Korhonen
Anna Korhonen is a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Cambridge where she co-directs the Cambridge Language Technology Lab. She is also the director of the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence at Cambridge, which aims to advance AI for the benefit of humanity. Her research focuses on natural language processing and AI for social and global good.
Jason Mars
Jason Mars is a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Breaking Bots: Inventing A New Voice In The AI Revolution. Mars has cofounded several companies, including conversational AI startup Clinc, last valued at $202 million in 2019, per PitchBook.
Sriram Raghavan
Sriram Raghavan is vice president of AI at IBM Research, where he leads a worldwide team of over 750 research scientists and engineers and oversees a wide-ranging research agenda that spans foundational and applied AI. He is responsible for transferring technology from the research lab to IBM’s multi-billion dollar software business. Prior to his current role, Sriram was director of the IBM
Investor Panel
Konstantine Buhler
Konstantine Buhler is a partner at Sequoia Capital, where he invests in companies at the seed and early stages. Prior to joining Sequoia in 2019, Konstantine was at Meritech Capital, where he invested in businesses including DataRobot and Newfront Insurance. Buhler is also an angel investor and advisor to companies including OpenSea and Viz.ai. He serves as a data partner on Forbes’ AI 50 list.
Disclosure: Sequoia is an investor in Cresta, ElevenLabs, Glean, Harvey, Hugging Face, Kumo.AI, LangChain, Notion, OpenAI, Replicate and Sierra.
Sarah Catanzaro
Sarah Catanzaro is a general partner at Amplify Partners, where she focuses on investing in and advising startups in artificial intelligence, data management and distributed systems. Catanzaro previously worked on data strategy and led data science and AI teams in the defense intelligence sector, including at Mattermark, Palantir, Cyveillance and the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.
Disclosure: Amplify Partners is an investor in Anyscale, LangChain, Rosebud AI and Runway.
Elad Gil
Elad Gil is a solo investor who has invested at the early stage in more than 30 startups that went on to reach billion-dollar valuations. He was previously cofounder and CEO of developer infrastructure company Mixer Labs, which was acquired by Twitter, and healthcare software startup Color Health. At Twitter, he served as vice president of corporate strategy.
Disclosure: Gil is an investor in Anduril Industries, Cerebras Systems, Character.AI, Harvey, Hugging Face, LangChain, Mistral AI, Notion, Perplexity, Pika and Scale AI.
Jocelyn Goldfein
Jocelyn Goldfein is a managing director at Zetta Ventures Partners. She invests at the seed stage in AI-native application and infrastructure companies. Goldfein previously worked as an engineering executive at VMware
VMW
Disclosure: Zetta Venture Partners is an investor in Weaviate.
Sarah Guo
Sarah Guo is the founder and managing partner at Conviction, a venture capital firm launched in 2022 to invest in intelligent software. Prior to starting her own firm, she spent a decade as a general partner at Greylock Partners. Guo has been an early investor or advisor to more than 40 companies, and co-hosts the AI podcast “No Priors” with Gil.
Disclosure: Conviction is an investor in Baseten, Harvey, LangChain, Mistral AI and Pika.
Dan Knight
Dan Knight leads Meritech Capital’s analytics and software development and is responsible for data initiatives including Meritech Benchmarking and the Meritech Software Pulse. He started his career investing in software companies from the seed to Series B stage at firms OpenView and Manifold.
Disclosure: Meritech Capital is not an investor in any companies on AI 50 2024.
Saam Motamedi
Saam Motamedi is a general partner at Greylock where he backs enterprise software startups. He partners with entrepreneurs at the seed and early stages who are focused on new opportunities in machine learning, AI and cybersecurity. Motamedi was previously founder of Guru Labs, a machine learning fintech startup.
Disclosure: Greylock is an investor in Adept, Baseten, Cresta and Tome.
Matt Murphy
Matt Murphy is a partner at Menlo Ventures, where he backs companies from pre-revenue to growth in focus areas including the new AI infrastructure stack, developer workflows and AI-first applications. Murphy has been a venture capitalist for more than two decades, working at Kleiner Perkins before joining Menlo in 2015. He began his career as a product manager at Sun Microsystems and NetBoost, a startup which was later acquired by Intel
INTC
Disclosure: Menlo Ventures is an investor in Anthropic, Cleanlab, Pinecone, Sana and Unstructured.
Rudina Seseri
Rudina Seseri is founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm which invests in enterprise and security companies that are incorporating AI. Seseri has nearly two decades of investing and operational experience in high-growth companies across enterprise software, data infrastructure and automation. She is also an executive fellow at Harvard Business School.
Disclosure: Glasswing Ventures is not an investor in any companies on AI 50 2024.
Rob Toews
Rob Toews is a partner at Radical Ventures and leads its San Francisco Bay Area office. Toews previously led AI investment as an investor at Highland Capital. He spent several years in the world of autonomous vehicles, including helping lead the strategy team at Zoox (acquired by Amazon
AMZN
Disclosure: Radical Ventures is an investor in Cohere, Hebbia and Waabi. Toews is a personal investor in Vannevar Labs.
Subscribe to our new newsletter The Prompt for all things AI — the biggest news, buzziest companies and boldest breakthroughs.
More from Forbes AI 50
Read the full article here
