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Every year, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) publishes a State of AI report. Their 2025 edition isn’t just a snapshot of the funding environment — it’s a roadmap for how AI-native companies grow, compete, and build moats.
Most marketers and creative leaders don’t read VC reports cover to cover. So here’s what matters — in plain English — and why it should shape the way you run creative.
Supernovas vs. Shooting Stars: Two Paths to AI Growth
BVP highlights two archetypes of AI startups:
- Supernovas explode with revenue — $40M in their first year, $125M in their second. They hire lean, drive $1M+ per employee, and often sacrifice margins just to blitzscale.
- Shooting Stars take a steadier track. They start smaller ($3M ARR in year one) but quadruple and triple consistently (the Q2T3 model: 4x, 4x, 3x, 3x, 3x). They reach $100M ARR in year four with healthier gross margins.
The takeaway for marketers? Growth doesn’t always mean burn. The companies that endure aren’t just chasing speed — they’re balancing creativity, efficiency, and repeatability. The same logic applies to your creative strategy.
The Next Moat: Memory and Context
BVP predicts that the strongest AI products won’t just generate content — they’ll remember and adapt. Context becomes the moat.
For creative teams, this means:
- Your tools should know what’s worked before.
- You shouldn’t reinvent every script, hook, or CTA from scratch.
- The system should warn you before fatigue sets in, not after your ROAS drops.
This is exactly where Uplifted is focused: building a Smart Creative Library that remembers every asset and a Creative Agent that tells you what’s working, why, and how to do it again.
Generative Video Is Next
Voice is breaking through in 2025. BVP expects video to follow in 2026 — costs will drop, quality will leap, and iteration speed will skyrocket.
That shift aligns with what we hear daily from marketers: it’s not about endless reshoots, it’s about remixing what already works into new variations. Clip-level performance data and AI-assisted remixing are how teams will scale when generative video goes mainstream.
Private Evals Will Matter More Than Demos
BVP highlights the rise of evals — private, reliable benchmarks for AI systems.
Marketers don’t care if a model demos well on stage. They care if it moves the needle on CTR, stop rates, or ROAS.
The future belongs to teams that can evaluate creative performance in context. That means dashboards that don’t just show spend, but surface which hook, CTA, or tone is driving results.
Why This Matters for Creative Ops
When you zoom out, the report isn’t about investors — it’s about operating smarter in the AI era:
- Don’t burn out your team or your budget trying to be a Supernova.
- Build a moat around creative intelligence, not just storage.
- Treat performance metrics as part of the creative process, not an afterthought.
- Embrace remixing and iteration as the fastest path to scale.
This is the creative operating system we’re building at Uplifted: one platform where your assets, performance data, and AI insights live together.
BVP’s State of AI 2025 confirms what many of us already feel: AI won’t replace creative teams, but the teams that harness AI for context, evaluation, and iteration will outpace the rest.
In other words: the next big moat isn’t more data, it’s smarter creative.
August 2025 Update: Uplifted’s Free Plan just launched!
Creative Library, Analytics, AI Creative Strategist, and Ad Iteration in one platform.
Start for free →