05 May AI Investing in 2026: Venture Capital, Proprietary LLMs, Agentic Security & more

Ephraim Lindenbaum, Managing Director of Advanced Ventures, shares a venture investor’s perspective on where AI startups are headed next. He discusses why proprietary AI and sector-specific LLMs matter, how agentic systems are reshaping cybersecurity, healthcare, defense tech, and robotics, and why many AI startups risk becoming “features” rather than venture-scale companies.

The conversation also explores enterprise AI adoption, data privacy, go-to-market strategy, robotics-as-a-service, the rise of AI-native students entering the workforce, and the “POC trap” that can keep startups stuck in pilots without converting to real customers.