Third Vector Observer | Edition 1
AI Adoption, Virtual Advisors, GTM in the AI Era, Typeless, Gaming Videos, Agentic AI Foundations
Welcome to the first edition of Third Vector Observer, an easy-to-digest newsletter featuring 5–10 high-quality, insightful pieces on venture building, AI, and news from Europe's tech ecosystem. Delivered to your inbox roughly twice a month.
Things We Observed…
1. The Economist: AI Adoption
A reality check on the state of AI adoption—and a reminder that not everyone is leaning in just yet.
“Adoption has fallen sharply at the largest businesses, those employing over 250 people. Three years into the generative-AI wave, demand for the technology looks surprisingly flimsy.”
And:
“From today until 2030 big tech firms will spend $5trn on infrastructure to supply AI services. To make those investments worthwhile, they need on the order of $650bn a year in AI revenues, according to JP Morgan Chase, a bank, up from about $50bn a year today.”
The Economist - Investors expect AI use to soar, that's not happening (possibly behind a paywall)
2. Fred Wilson: Making AI Virtual Advisors
I’ve been reading Fred Wilson’s blog, AVC, for over 15 years. As a founding partner of Union Square Ventures, Fred pioneered blogging in the VC industry, sharing insights on tech trends, the state of VC, and practical advice for entrepreneurs. He maintains a massive following, even after moving his blog “onchain” (to the blockchain).
When I started working with startups ~10 years ago, I benefited from his frameworks on cap table management, startup valuation, and emerging tech like machine learning.
In this post, he discusses creating AI virtual advisors. It resonates because I’ve created a virtual CFO, CMO, and CTO using Google’s Gemini (Gems) for Third Vector. Interacting with these advisors every day is a true productivity multiplier.
3. GTM in the AI Era
Lenny’s Podcast is a pure treasure trove. Lenny is the chillest, most humble host in the space. This episode with Vercel’s COO Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (formerly of Stripe and Google) on what GTM looks like in 2026 is packed with insights.
To pick just one, in three simple steps Jeanne’s team built a “Lostbot” to learn from lost deals:
Step 1: Pull a list of lost deals from the previous quarter by size.
Step 2: Gather all sales transcripts (Vercel uses Gong), Slack convos, and email threads.
Step3: Use an AI agent to diagnose each deal and extract learnings.
They then used those lessons to create a “Dealbot” that analyzes live deals to flag risks—like, “Hey, you haven’t talked to the economic buyer yet.” Essentially, these bots help Vercel find bugs in their go-to-market process.
4. AI dictation with Typeless
AI-native voice-typing got really, really good. It still feels a bit weird to talk to your computer, but it’s incredibly fast (4x faster than typing) and the transcription quality is stunning. I’ve been using Typeless for note-taking in Obsidian and for drafting emails; I love it. They offer a free tier that is well worth checking out.
5. Gaming and AI Research Lab with Dutch roots Raises $133.7M in Seed
It turns out video game recordings are a gold mine for training AI on scenarios that are expensive to simulate—like helicopter crashes or plane accidents. Pim de Witte, the Dutch founder of Medal.tv (a platform that beats YouTube in annual video game clip uploads), decided to spin off a dedicated research lab for foundation models trained on gaming footage.
The lab, called General Intuition, raised $133.7M in seed funding to build models for use cases requiring spatial and temporal reasoning, such as autonomous vehicles and robotics. While now headquartered in NYC, General Intuition’s parent company is based in Naarden, Netherlands.
6. Protocols and Agentic AI Foundation
This article from The Economist (Dec 13, 2025) does an excellent job explaining how different AI protocols, specifically A2A and MCP, work together to create the next version of the web.
The Economist - The next version of the web will be built for machines not humans