cleverhack.com

AI Market Maps: Curated Intelligence from Leading VCs, Analysts, and Practitioners

July 2025 (Updated June 2026)

The Problem

I kept hitting the same wall — trying to track AI market developments while managing everything else. Finding current market maps meant hunting through individual VC blogs, analyst publications, and scattered Substack newsletters and Medium posts. After enough frustration, I decided to build something for the greater community: Awesome AI Market Maps, now featuring over 500 curated market maps from leading industry sources.

Current Market Dynamics

The AI landscape moves differently than traditional technology sectors such as B2B SaaS, networking, or cybersecurity. We're seeing quarterly — or even weekly — pivots in VC funding patterns, technology adoption, and competitive positioning rather than annual cycles. Market maps capture these relationships visually, but accessing updated information remains a particular pain point.

Building the Repo

The approach combines automated discovery — Claude and Exa Websets — along with human curation for taste and relevance. This balance ensures broad coverage while filtering for actionable insights.

Organizational Framework

◦ Quarterly organization reveals an evolving market

◦ 2026-2025 focus for immediate applicability

◦ Historical patterns enable emergent trend identification

Observations

In 2025 we witnessed substantial analytical investment across the AI ecosystem, based on the volume and topical diversity of quality market maps being produced.

However, in 1H 2026, we're observing an increase in niche and/or geographically targeted market maps. Market maps about agents, AI infra/compute, and robotics remain popular but market maps about AI devtools, genAI, and AI apps have noticeably decreased.

The Community

Our early users are engaged — startup founders doing competitive analysis, VC investors tracking sector evolution, and industry practitioners building products. This open model encourages collaborative intelligence while preserving advantages.

Looking Ahead

AI adoption patterns feel similar to the early Internet, suggesting years of multiple integration waves within business, government, and society.

Links

AI Market Maps Repo: https://github.com/joylarkin/Awesome-AI-Market-Maps

Search the CSV file: https://github.com/joylarkin/Awesome-AI-Market-Maps/blob/main/ai_market_maps.csv

Use the MCP server: https://gitmcp.io/joylarkin/Awesome-AI-Market-Maps

Explore the Hugging Face dataset: https://huggingface.co/datasets/joylarkin/2026AIMarketMaps

Subscribe to real-time RSS updates: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joylarkin/Awesome-AI-Market-Maps/main/feeds/AIMarketMaps.xml

How to Contribute

Are you a market map creator? Contributions are welcome, just follow the directions on the repo.

Help spread the word, and if you find this resource useful, GitHub stars 🌟 are always appreciated!

BONUS: Tips for Market Map Authors

Imagine this: You spend days building an AI Market Map to showcase your investment thesis. But sadly, it earns a few views and disappears.

Here's what I've learned after observing hundreds of market maps come and go over the past few years:

☞ Add a date to your market map — and update it regularly. New insights get shared while undated market maps get ignored as no one wants to reshare something that might be outdated.

☞ Include your firm's logo and URL prominently. When your market map takes off, make sure people can find you. I've seen amazing maps go viral with very little attribution to the author.

☞ Post your market map on your firm's blog or insights section or even your personal blog, not just in a LinkedIn or Twitter thread. Give it a permanent home that builds GEO/SEO and credibility. I’ve noticed it is easier for AI chatbots to reference URLs than individual social media posts. Note: Substack is difficult to search from the outside.

☞ Cross-post your market map everywhere. LinkedIn, Twitter, your firm’s newsletter, relevant Slack communities. One post rarely cuts through the noise.

☞ Link to the startups and companies you've mapped please. Make it easy for your audience to explore. The best AI market maps are thesis building and research starting points.

The market maps that continually get referenced months later? They follow these rules.

Want to see what great looks like? My AI Market Maps repo has some excellent curated examples from top VCs and industry analysts: https://github.com/joylarkin/Awesome-AI-Market-Maps

Menu	About The Author	More AI Writing
⇒ HOME ⇒ ABOUT	Joy Larkin is a technologist in Silicon Valley. She likes robots and is excited for Superintelligence. LinkedIn: /in/joylarkin ◦◦◦ Twitter: @joy	Accelerators, Incubators, Residencies and Other Programs for 2026 AI Startup Founders Frontier AI Lab Tracker