Betting on a agentic AI company? See who’s really ahead before you pick a side

Updated October 202670+ pagesPDF

Agentic AI: Who’s Ahead
Cover of NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI: Who’s Ahead report, 2026 edition
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.
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.
How fast do agent startups reach $100M of yearly sales? In months, not years. Manus and Genspark got there 8 to 9 months after launching their agent, Sierra ~21 months after its launch. Classic software startups took ~8 to 10 years, counted from their founding. Chart from NewMarketPitch's Agentic AI report.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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Inside the report

  • Who’s ahead, and who’s falling behind
  • How far the challengers are behind
  • Who has real customers, who only promises
  • What technologies are gaining traction
  • Who are the top companies today
  • What are their valuations
  • Who’s getting funded, and by whom
  • Which business models are winning
  • 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