The next few years will determine the leaders in vertical AI – tech entrepreneur and investor Serhiy Tokarev
Vertical artificial intelligence solves clearly defined tasks, making it one of the most promising areas for venture investors. Serhiy Tokarev, founder of the Tokarev Foundation, tech entrepreneur and investor, is confident that in the next few years we will see leaders in the vertical AI category. This technology will provide highly specialised solutions for real business processes and will drive value creation in the market in 2026.
‘Compared to horizontal AI, which is considered a general-purpose tool, vertical AI does not risk becoming obsolete and disappearing, as has already happened with prompt engineering services,’ notes the founder of the Tokarev Foundation.
Why vertical AI is promising for investors
Vertical AI is developing in a healthier investment environment. Horizontal services are building large-scale foundation models. Their development is taking place amid excessive concentration of investment among a small number of players, such as OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic.
In 2025, 60% of capital was invested in large AI labs, and 90% of these funds went to mega-rounds of a limited group of companies. For many venture funds, this makes it difficult to form a diversified strategy.
Serhiy Tokarev emphasises that in vertical AI, capital is distributed across different regions and industries, and competition grows naturally due to the deep integration of AI tools into operational processes. He also highlights finance, law, and procurement as industries where this technology has already shown good results:
- In procurement, where companies still work with email and Excel, there is a whole niche of AI platforms with ‘smart’ planning and decision support without massive ERP systems.
- In the legal industry, automation can reduce lawyers’ administrative workload by up to 60% spent on paperwork. Vertical AI will take over most of the routine tasks in litigation, patent searches, and small business services.
- In the financial sector, investors are paying attention to AI tools for auditing and accounting. They are capable of testing controls, preparing reports, and verifying documents.
According to Serhiy Tokarev, the next 2-3 years will determine the leaders in the vertical artificial intelligence category. Horizontal services are unable to adapt to real constraints, and existing players are moving more slowly than the market requires. The cost of changing suppliers will rise sharply, and markets will quickly consolidate, as such AI tools become entrenched in legal, financial, and procurement processes.
