Generative AI Fundamentals Map

Map/Agents and organisations/Wave 8

Computer use

Agents operate ordinary software through its screen.

capabilityEmerging Open on the map →

Facts

Lane: Agents and organisations
Wave: 8 of 12 (build order, not a date)
Needs: 8 boxes all the way back through hard links
Unlocks: 2 boxes downstream through hard links
Leverage: 0.2 points · stands in the way of 2 of 53 stages · rank 37 of 57
Cluster: Agents at work

Evidence as of October 2026

Karpathy lists reliable computer use as one of the pieces agents still lack.

01Andrej Karpathy on the Dwarkesh Podcast

Around it

Needs · 1

Multimodal perceptioncapability · Built today

Unlocks · 3

Drop-in remote workerstage · Speculative
AGI: top-expert-level AIstage · Speculative · helps, not required
Long-horizon agentsstage · Built today · helps, not required

Loops and off-ramps

Capex pullbackoff-ramp · cut off
Taiwan chip disruptionoff-ramp · cut off
Power shortfalloff-ramp · cut off
Training data ruled outoff-ramp · slowed

Openings researchers' judgement, October 2026 scouting

Startup room 25/100 · rank 119 of 124 Research room 33/100 · rank 110 of 124

Crowding5 Lab overlap5 Small-team fit2 Buyer today3 Research openness3

Depth: light
Players: Frontier labs; Prentis ($100m at $1bn talks); Simular; H Company; Coasty (YC)
Wedge: Reliability on long expert workflows (Cua-Bench 6/25), not benchmark chasing. research