Sean Green
For decades, venture capital has operated on a relatively simple premise: Back exceptional founders early, provide capital, open doors and help companies scale. In prior technology waves—cloud computing, mobile, or software as a service—that formula often worked. Investors did not need to be operators themselves to add value. Pattern recognition, networks and conviction were enough to matter.
Artificial intelligence is changing that model.
As generative AI matures and agentic workflows begin to reshape how companies operate, founders are facing a different kind of challenge: navigating rapid technological change, uncertain economics, new customer expectations and product decisions that can redefine an entire business almost overnight.
In this environment, capital alone is no longer enough. Increasingly, the most valuable investors are the ones building alongside the market. My co-founder and I are the managing partner and general partner in an early stage VC fund while also operating our tech companies that have transitioned from SaaS to AI-native alongside our portfolio founders. We are in the trenches of funding and building AI companies at the same time.
Here are some insights about how the VC playbook is changing.
James Norman
The Rise of the Builder/Investor
The era of the builder/investor is emerging.
These VC firms are not waiting for portfolio companies to figure out AI on their own. They are actively experimenting inside their own organizations and across their operating companies.
Every technology cycle rewards those closest to implementation. In cloud computing, it was the operators who knew how infrastructure would shift. In mobile, it was those who understood that consumer behavior changes first. In AI, it will be those who understand where automation produces durable business value, rather than novelty.
The advantage extends beyond sourcing deals.
Builder/investors can often identify which startups are solving real problems, rather than wrapping commodity models in marketing language. They can better assess defensibility, product velocity, customer stickiness and whether a team truly understands the complexity of deployment.
In a market crowded with AI claims, practical experience becomes a filtering mechanism and the lens that savvy VCs use to make investments that generate outsized returns.
Why Lived Experience Matters Now
Many venture firms are discussing AI strategy with portfolio companies. Far fewer have actually transformed legacy businesses into AI-first organizations themselves.
That experience matters, because transformation from SaaS to AI native is messy. It involves retraining teams, redesigning processes, reallocating budgets, managing cultural resistance and making bets before the returns on investment are obvious. It means confronting the uncomfortable reality that some products, teams and pricing structures built for the SaaS era may not survive unchanged in the AI era.
Investors who have gone through that process firsthand are often better equipped to guide founders through it. They understand not only the opportunity, but the friction. VCs with that experience know that introducing AI into a company is not the same as growing a new business as an AI native.
What the Market Will Reward Next
Over the next five years, venture capital itself will likely stratify. Some firms will continue operating as financial intermediaries: strong brands, broad networks, traditional pattern recognition. Those advantages will always matter.
But another VC group will emerge with a different edge: operational fluency in AI. Those investors will be known for helping companies modernize products, rethink pricing, redesign workflows and capture efficiency gains faster than competitors.
For founders, choosing between those two types of investors will be increasingly consequential. The question will no longer be, “Who can fund us?” It will be, “Who can help us navigate the hardest platform shift in a generation?” That answer may determine which startups lead the next decade.
Building Is the New Due Diligence
The venture capital industry often talks about its value add. In the AI era, value add is becoming measurable.
Can your investor pressure-test your AI road map? Can they support your company in identifying the right initial enterprise use case? Can they help restructure pricing around outcomes? Can they share lessons from deploying agents internally? Can they spot where automation helps and where it brings inefficiency or erodes customer trust?
If the answers to these questions are yes, that investor is no longer just a source of capital. They become a competitive advantage. The best AI investors are builders, whereas in previous eras, investors could learn alongside founders. With AI, the pace is too fast, and the stakes are too high.
The firms that define the next decade of venture capital will not be those that simply recognized the AI opportunity early; they will be the ones that learned how to execute on it. In a market moving this quickly, theory ages fast, while operational experience compounds. Founders do not need investors to be spectators to the AI transition; they need partners who understand how to build, adapt, sell and scale through it in real time.
That is why the best AI investors are also builders in this era when the greatest advantage is no longer just access to capital—it is proximity to the work.
James Norman is the co-founder and managing partner at Black Operator Ventures, an early-stage VC firm. In addition to Black Ops VC, Norman is the CEO of Pilotly, an AI-powered market research platform for audience feedback on video content. Norman is also a partner at Transparent Collective, an accelerator for overlooked founders.
Sean Green is the co-Founder and general partner at Black Operator Ventures, an early stage VC firm. In addition to Black Ops VC, Green is the founder and CEO of ARTERNAL, an AI-powered CRM and inventory management platform for art galleries, dealers, auction houses and collectors.
This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal or tax advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice. Any opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the stance of ISS-STOXX or its affiliates.