Is AINS the Next SaaS?

Investor Jake Saper of Emergence Capital is promoting AINS, or AI-Native Services, as the next frontier for startups, predicting that accounting, insurance, and legal industries will be transformed by AI-native firms that sell services rather than software. Saper shared his emerging playbook with founders at a summit hosted by AI-native law firm Crosby in New York City, where he outlined how these businesses charge for outcomes instead of billable hours.

Last week, in New York City, I dropped by the offices of AI-native law firm Crosby to listen in on a small summit organized by investor Jake Saper , who is spreading the gospel of AINS, or “AI-Native Services.” Saper and his firm Emergence Capital are betting that accounting, insurance, legal, and other people-intensive industries will be the next frontier for startups. Instead of selling software like last-generation startups did, these next-generation AI startups are selling the underlying services themselves. They’re hiring lawyers, accountants, and insurance brokers and pairing them with AI-pilled software engineers who are tasked with figuring out ways to make those service providers much more productive. These AINS businesses are often charging for the results of their services rather than billable hours because they aim to do the job in far fewer hours than traditional human-powered services businesses could . So you might pay per completed contract, say, rather than for the hours a lawyer says it took. I caught up with Saper after the summit, and he sent me the private deck he shared with eager AINS founders that contains his emerging playbook for building these businesses.