This week in AI: The next AI unicorn led by a solo entrepreneur; Gartner’s warning on agentic AI

From solo entrepreneur-led AI startups racing to gain unicorn status to Gartner’s alarming predictions on the fate of agentic AI, AIStory brings a recap of major developments and emerging trends in the sector this week.

Here’s a list of key stories:

The next unicorn could be run by a solo entrepreneur with AI

It took five funding rounds spread over five years for the software powerhouse Salesforce to hit a billion-dollar valuation, a feat that legacy enterprise software giants like SAP and Oracle had taken decades to achieve.  

With AI, companies are scaling within months and with leaner teams. These AI-native startups—think AI image generator startup Midjourney and coding platform Cursor—are posting eye-popping annual recurring revenue, ranging anywhere from $10 million to well over $100 million. 

While it sounds unreal, a new-age coder with a rack of GPUs and co-pilots could, in theory, spin up a product, ship globally, and sprint to $100 million ARR before a traditional SaaS giant can even finish its next headcount planning cycle. Read more. 

Flipkart Co-founder Binny Bansal invests $20M in ecommerce AI startup ShopOS

AI startup ShopOS has raised $20 million in a funding round led by Flipkart Co-founder Binny Bansal’s 3STATE Ventures. The Bengaluru startup plans to use the funding to expand its platform development, grow its product and engineering teams, and acquire new international brand partners. 

“ShopOS is an AI-native operating system for ecommerce. It’s an agent-driven stack that lets brands make, market, and manage their stores,” Ajay P V, Co-founder of ShopOS, told YourStory. 

Founded by Sai Krishna V K and Ajay P V, who previously co-founded Scapic, an AI and augmented reality platform, the firm is building an AI-native operating system for ecommerce brands. Read more.

NetApp to mentor five AI infrastructure startups in 14th Excellerator cohort

Data infrastructure firm NetApphas announced the 14th cohort of its startup accelerator, NetApp Excellerator, selecting five early to growth-stage startups working in AI infrastructure and related technologies.  

The selected companies include Synthefy, Filo Systems, Sentra, TrueFoundry, and Genloop.ai, which span stages from pre-seed to Series B. They were chosen for their work in areas such as customisable LLMs, cloud security, and multi-modal generative AI. The cohort also includes startups from regions such as Israel and the US. Read more. 

SaaS unicorn Darwinbox completes Rs 86 Cr ESOP buyback

HR tech unicorn Darwinbox completed a Rs 86 crore Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyback, benefiting over 350 employees across its 11 offices in India, North America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. This is the company’s third buyback in four years.  

“At Darwinbox, we’ve always believed that those who help build value should share in it. Even as we invest deeply in innovation and global growth, we remain equally committed to creating meaningful outcomes for our people. This buyback, like the ones before, reflects our belief in sharing success with our people and building a culture of ownership,” said Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox. Read more. 

Over 40% agentic AI deployments will be abandoned by 2027: Gartner

According to research and advisory firm Gartner, more than 40% of agentic AI initiatives will be abandoned by the end of 2027. 

The research comes amid increasing interest in the emerging subfield of AI, which aims to build systems capable of proactive, autonomous decision-making with minimal human supervision. Gartner defines “agentic AI” as a category of artificial intelligence models that can autonomously perform complex tasks such as planning, learning, and goal achievement. 

These models go beyond traditional generative AI by not just producing content but by taking action on behalf of users or systems. Popular examples include AI agents for scheduling, autonomous software workflows, and self-directed digital workers. Read more. 

Google brings advanced AI Mode search experience to India

Google Search has changed how people access information online through AI tools, such as AI Overviews. Expanding on this, the company is now bringing its more advanced AI Mode search experience to users in India.

This new mode provides enhanced reasoning capabilities, can interpret different types of input, and allows users to pose more complex queries. It also supports in-depth exploration of topics through follow-up questions and relevant web links. The tech giant introduced AI Mode as an experiment in the US earlier this year, and began expanding its availability beyond Labs during Google I/O 2025. Read more.