Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping large corporations move faster, shorten development cycles, and embed technology across every layer of business. When deployed effectively, this is translating into sharp gains in valuations and revenues.
Speaking at a panel discussion at CES 2026, Hemant Taneja, chief executive of venture capital (VC) firm General Catalyst, and Bob Sternfels, global managing partner at McKinsey & Company, said organisations are scaling at unprecedented speed, driven largely by AI adoption.
Taneja cited examples from his portfolio, noting that payments major Stripe took 12–13 years to reach a $100 billion valuation, while AI startup Anthropic achieved that within a couple of years, largely because of artificial intelligence. Founded by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic develops the safety-focused generative AI model Claude.
The startup raised $13 billion in September last year, pushing its valuation to $183 billion, up from $61.5 billion in March 2025. While Anthropic had reported a $1 billion revenue run rate at the start of 2025, that scaled to $5 billion by August. A revenue run rate reflects a company’s projected annual revenue based on current performance.
Commenting on the rapid growth seen at AI startups, Sternfels said large enterprises are increasingly adopting solutions built by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Large enterprises are using technology at a scale and rate that they haven’t before. If you look at IT spend as a percentage of revenue, it has gone up. And I think that is what is propelling the 10X growth we are seeing among AI startups,” said Sternfels.
As AI reshapes how enterprises function, companies will need to rethink hiring criteria to attract talent capable of operating in an AI-driven environment, Sternfels added.
He said that for technical roles, traditional signals such as where a candidate studied should matter less than demonstrable skills, such as contributions on platforms like GitHub. “Let’s actually get to the content that the candidate creates. That could allow a much wider set of people to enter the workforce through different pathways.”
Taneja said the education system has historically focused on training people to solve hard problems, but AI is increasingly taking over that role. As a result, the next generation will need to focus more on asking the right questions.
“It’s about learning how to ask the right questions rather than solving entire worlds of hard problems. That requires a very different mindset, rooted in curiosity,” he said.
The AI-led shift is also changing how VC firms operate. In October 2025, General Catalyst acquired Summa Health, an Ohio-based healthcare organisation. Addressing questions around why a seed-stage-focussed VC firm was pursuing what resembled a private equity deal, Taneja said traditional industries such as healthcare need structural transformation.
“We bought it to create a platform where we can work with our founders and transform the system using AI. It also provides market access. It is extremely hard for healthcare startups to deploy and scale successfully within these systems,” Taneja said.
The approach upends conventional early-stage investing, Taneja added. Instead of backing startups that disrupt incumbents from the outside, General Catalyst aims to acquire underperforming legacy institutions and open them up to technology-led transformation.
“Effectively, you are creating a new asset class. This isn’t private equity — it’s about transforming incumbent entities into something fundamentally different,” Sternfels said.
(The author is attending CES 2026 in Las Vegas at the invitation of the Consumer Technology Association, USA.)
Speaking at a panel discussion at CES 2026, Hemant Taneja, chief executive of venture capital (VC) firm General Catalyst, and Bob Sternfels, global managing partner at McKinsey & Company, said organisations are scaling at unprecedented speed, driven largely by AI adoption.
Taneja cited examples from his portfolio, noting that payments major Stripe took 12–13 years to reach a $100 billion valuation, while AI startup Anthropic achieved that within a couple of years, largely because of artificial intelligence. Founded by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic develops the safety-focused generative AI model Claude.
The startup raised $13 billion in September last year, pushing its valuation to $183 billion, up from $61.5 billion in March 2025. While Anthropic had reported a $1 billion revenue run rate at the start of 2025, that scaled to $5 billion by August. A revenue run rate reflects a company’s projected annual revenue based on current performance.
Commenting on the rapid growth seen at AI startups, Sternfels said large enterprises are increasingly adopting solutions built by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
“Large enterprises are using technology at a scale and rate that they haven’t before. If you look at IT spend as a percentage of revenue, it has gone up. And I think that is what is propelling the 10X growth we are seeing among AI startups,” said Sternfels.
As AI reshapes how enterprises function, companies will need to rethink hiring criteria to attract talent capable of operating in an AI-driven environment, Sternfels added.
He said that for technical roles, traditional signals such as where a candidate studied should matter less than demonstrable skills, such as contributions on platforms like GitHub. “Let’s actually get to the content that the candidate creates. That could allow a much wider set of people to enter the workforce through different pathways.”
Taneja said the education system has historically focused on training people to solve hard problems, but AI is increasingly taking over that role. As a result, the next generation will need to focus more on asking the right questions.
“It’s about learning how to ask the right questions rather than solving entire worlds of hard problems. That requires a very different mindset, rooted in curiosity,” he said.
The AI-led shift is also changing how VC firms operate. In October 2025, General Catalyst acquired Summa Health, an Ohio-based healthcare organisation. Addressing questions around why a seed-stage-focussed VC firm was pursuing what resembled a private equity deal, Taneja said traditional industries such as healthcare need structural transformation.
“We bought it to create a platform where we can work with our founders and transform the system using AI. It also provides market access. It is extremely hard for healthcare startups to deploy and scale successfully within these systems,” Taneja said.
The approach upends conventional early-stage investing, Taneja added. Instead of backing startups that disrupt incumbents from the outside, General Catalyst aims to acquire underperforming legacy institutions and open them up to technology-led transformation.
“Effectively, you are creating a new asset class. This isn’t private equity — it’s about transforming incumbent entities into something fundamentally different,” Sternfels said.
(The author is attending CES 2026 in Las Vegas at the invitation of the Consumer Technology Association, USA.)