VC dem dey talk say companies go put dia AI budgets for few proven vendors for 2026

Venture capitalists wey TechCrunch survey do — wey include partners from Databricks Ventures, Asymmetric Capital, Norwest and Snowflake Ventures — dem dey expect say most enterprises go raise AI spending for 2026 but dem go focus budget for small number of proven, high-ROI products. The respondents (24 enterprise-focused VCs) dey see shift from wide experiment to targeted deployment and tool rationalization. Main spending themes: data foundations, model post-training optimization, governance and safeguards to make AI production-safe, and vendor consolidation. VCs warn say this reallocation fit compress funding and adoption for many AI startups, especially commoditized or easy-to-replicate offerings and those wey dey compete directly with big suppliers (eg AWS, Salesforce). But startups wey get hard-to-replicate vertical products or proprietary data fit still attract capital. The survey say VCs invest record $192.7 billion into AI startups in 2025, show strong general interest even as 2026 spend go concentrate. For crypto traders: the shift favor established AI infrastructure and enterprise-focused vendors, plus firms wey offer governance, data-platform, or optimization tools — areas wey intersect with blockchain projects wey provide enterprise data solutions or AI orchestration. Commoditised AI tooling or small startups without defensible moats fit face funding headwinds wey go reduce M&A or token-linked partnership activity.