A new report from HSBC Innovation Banking says the U.S. technology sector is entering the “agentic age” where artificial intelligence will redefine modern life.
The report is the organization’s latest quarterly outlook for the technology sector and explores major trends shaping startup development, venture activity and big tech strategies in the age of AI centering on three themes – a growing concentration of venture activity within AI, massive research and development spending and innovation to create new waves of growth and tailwinds for returns with faster company formation, expanded capabilities and potential deregulation.
“Venture capital has always gravitated toward transformative industries, but the level of consolidation we’re seeing within one category is unprecedented,” HSBC U.S. Innovation Banking Head Dave Sabow said. “The radical change this investment will fuel places us in the dawn of ‘The Agentic Age,’ an era where autonomous artificial intelligence capabilities fundamentally redefine how we communicate, work, and interface with digital and physical worlds. When a technological advancement alters modern life to this degree, it becomes one of those rare moments that demands its own chapter in history.”
The report said different forces were weighing on the U.S-based tech startup ecosystem including further build-up in the $1 trillion backlog of non-AI startups; a slowed venture capital flywheel as investor capital is tied up for longer periods of time, a looming shadow of economic volatility, and the expectation of a more permissive acquisition market and fiscal policies the stimulate economic activity.