Olivia Moore Says Consumer AI Needs More Than Subscriptions

Consumer AI companies need revenue sources beyond subscriptions and API charges, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) partner Olivia Moore told TechCrunch. She said free services supported by ads could reach consumers who do not want another subscription, while retaining paid options that remove ads.

Moore said companies can also reduce costs by using cheaper or open source models for tasks that do not require frontier intelligence. She cited ChatGPT Go at $8 per month as an example of lower pricing, while noting that coding and technical automation often require more capable models.

An a16z report ranked ChatGPT as the largest consumer AI app, while Suno and ElevenLabs showed continued demand. The ranking had no entrants from social media, dating, marketplaces, retail, travel, finance or health, which Moore identified as categories where new consumer AI services could emerge.