Pitching, investing or competing? Know which agentic AI companies really matter

Updated October 202670+ pagesPDF

Top Agentic AI Companies
Cover of NewMarketPitch's Top Agentic AI Companies report, 2026 edition
Is Sierra worth more than the software it wants to replace? Yes. Sierra, which sells AI customer-service agents, is worth $15.8B, more than Five9, NICE and Freshworks together ($13.2B). Those three expect ~$5.4B of sales in 2026, ~27 times Sierra’s ~$200M a year. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Are AI agent startups priced like big tech? Far above it. Their last rounds value them at a median ~48 times their yearly sales (Sierra ×79, Cognition ×48). Listed software trades at ~4 times, and only Palantir (×79) is priced like them. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Are seat-based software stocks falling as AI agents rise? Many are. Software sold per user (“seat”) lost a median 28% since January 2025, while the S&P 500 gained 32%. Sierra’s private value rose ×3.5, Cognition’s ×24. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
How do AI agents charge their customers? Three ways. Per user each month, like classic software ($30 to $125). Per step, action or session used (2¢ to 49¢). Or per resolved conversation ($0.99 to $2), paid only when the agent succeeds. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Who is fighting whom in agentic AI? Where sales are public, the bigger seller leads, and in coding it is a lab’s own agent. Big software firms buy their way in: Salesforce bought Fin for ~$3.6B. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
How much cheaper is an AI agent than a human? On list prices, 7 to 14 times cheaper for a support ticket ($1-2 vs ~$13.50) and 2 to 5 times for a security alert. But platform fees and failed conversations handed back to humans are not in the sticker price. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Did the warnings scare investors away from AI agents? No. In the 12 months after Gartner and MIT warned, AI agent startups raised $11.7B, 3.6 times the 12 months before. The pace kept rising in 2026. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Cognition or Claude Code: who leads in AI coding agents? Claude Code, on published sales: $2.5B+ a year in February 2026, its latest official figure, 2.5 times Cognition’s $1B seven months later. Cognition has been selling longer, since Devin went on general sale in December 2024. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
Do a handful of agent startups take most of the money? Almost half of it. Two startups, Cognition and Sierra, took 23% of the $22.7B raised by AI agent startups recently. The top 10 took 45%, the other 596 shared the rest. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.

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Inside the report

  • Who are the top companies today
  • What each one is worth, then and now
  • Who’s raised the most, and from whom
  • Who’s growing the fastest
  • Who’s ahead, and who’s falling behind
  • Which investors are making the biggest bets
  • Which business models are winning
  • What technologies are gaining traction
  • What are the biggest unsolved problems
  • What has changed in the last 12 months
  • Where are the biggest opportunities
  • Who are the likely future winners
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Verified data with sourcesUpdated in October 2026