Vertical AI Is ONE Of The Most Promising Areas For Investment – Tech Entrepreneur And Investor Serhii Tokarev

Key Takeaways

• Vertical AI attracts diversified venture capital
• Procurement AI targets SMBs using Excel workflows
• Legal AI reduces document time by up to 60%
• Finance AI automates audit, reporting, and verification
• Next 24‑36 months will crown vertical AI leaders

Pulse Analysis

The AI funding landscape is undergoing a structural shift. In 2025, roughly 60% of AI capital funneled into a handful of large foundation‑model labs, creating a concentration risk for most venture firms. Horizontal AI, while powerful, demands massive datasets and compute, making rapid adaptation costly. By contrast, vertical AI focuses on narrow, high‑impact use cases, allowing startups to leverage existing domain data and deliver immediate value. This decentralization of capital not only lowers entry barriers but also encourages competitive innovation across multiple industries.

Procurement, legal, and finance are emerging as the flagship verticals where AI is delivering measurable gains. In procurement, AI platforms replace manual Excel‑driven processes with intelligent planning tools, unlocking efficiency for small and medium‑sized enterprises that lack sophisticated ERP systems. Legal AI automates document review, contract drafting, and case analysis, cutting lawyer time on routine tasks by up to 60%, a figure that translates into significant billable‑hour savings. Finance firms are deploying AI for audit automation, control testing, and real‑time report generation, reducing compliance costs and accelerating decision cycles. These applications illustrate how deep domain expertise, rather than sheer compute power, drives adoption.

For investors, the next two to three years will be decisive. Venture capitalists must evaluate startups on the strength of their industry knowledge, data ownership, and integration pathways rather than just model size. Companies that can embed AI into existing workflows and demonstrate clear cost‑benefit metrics will attract the bulk of the redistributed capital. As vertical AI matures, it is poised to become a standard component of enterprise operations, reshaping competitive dynamics and setting new performance benchmarks across the procurement, legal, and financial sectors.