Markets
FTV Capital's Brad Bernstein: AI's Gains Go to Mid-Market 'Middleweights', Not Incumbents or AI-Natives
Published July 29 on Crunchbase News, FTV managing partner Brad Bernstein argues that horizontal platforms like Microsoft Copilot and Salesforce agents cannot win regulation-heavy, category-specific workflows, and that 20% of companies currently capture three-quarters of AI's economic gains per PwC's 2026 study. His counterexamples are load-bearing: Klarna's chatbot rollout failed badly enough that it rehired human staff and the company sits at a $6B valuation, while Intercom's Fin moved to $0.99 per resolved conversation and was acquired by Salesforce for about $3.6 billion. His thesis names workflow ownership and balance-sheet depth as the surviving moats, with Agiloft and ReliaQuest as portfolio proof points.
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