Skip to content
Slow Variables

Ask the data

Answers come from the same store as the site; every number is checked against the record it cites.

Capture / layer 5

Deployment & application

Deployment services, coding agents, vertical and consumer apps, rollups. Dependency tier 4.

Disclosure: the maintainer is involved with BetterBrain, a firm in this layer's deployment-services sub-layer. Its indicators follow the same rules as every other.

Indicators

Application layer's share of enterprise generative-AI spend (Menlo)grade B
emergingcoincident55/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
51.4%as of 2025-12-31(2 obs)
Public cloud software valuation multiples (Clouded Judgement)grade B
emergingleading50/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
4.40×as of 2026-09-04
Vertical versus horizontal application fundinggrade A
dispersingleading45/95 confidence, limited or vague
2.30×as of 2026-03-31(11 obs)
Startups' share of enterprise AI application revenuegrade B
emergingcoincident50/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
63.0%as of 2025-12-31
Developer productivity uplift (METR RCTs)grade A
consistent with normalleading70/95 confidence, good evidence, some ambiguity
-4.0%⚑disputedas of 2026-02-24
Enterprise pilots with measurable P&L impactgrade C
consistent with normalcoincident55/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
5.0%⚑disputedas of 2025-06-30
FDA-authorised devices built on a large language modelgrade A
consistent with normalleading60/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
1as of 2025-12-23(3 obs)
Frontier models completing expert legal tasks end to end (Harvey LAB)grade D
emergingleading40/95 confidence, limited or vague
7.1%as of 2026-05-26
Waymo paid rides per weekgrade C
consistent with normalcoincident65/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalise
500,000 rides per weekas of 2026-03-27

Sub-layers

  1. 17. Deployment / FDE / implementation services
  2. 18. Coding agents & dev tools
  3. 19. Vertical AI by domain
  4. 20. Consumer AI
  5. 21. AI-native rollups / buyout vehicles

Crosswalk to the diffusion lens

  • Products (same valve) — Uplift RCTs, pilot→production and app-layer margin net of inference measure the same valve.
  • Adaptation (leak from) — Deployment/FDE services capture part of the surplus that adaptation creates.