A New Year Conversation with Koji: 2025 — The Critical Year for AI, the Dawn of the Agent Era

A New Year Conversation with Koji: 2025 — The Critical Year for AI, the Dawn of the Agent Era

January 5, 2025

The first episode of 2025 is a crossover between "Seriously Speaking" (此话当真) and "Crossroads" (十字路口). At the start of the new year, both Yusen and Koji are feeling energized — because they're living through a pivotal moment in tech history. That feeling stems from two major events: the public launch of Devin, and the release of OpenAI's o3 model.

Why is Devin so exciting? Six months ago, when Yusen appeared on "Crossroads," he offered an analogy: "Large models are still elementary schoolers — don't rush to put them to work." But after personally trying Devin, Yusen believes that as the first truly usable Agent product, Devin has revealed what the Scaling Law looks like for work itself. From "you ask, I answer" to "you ask, I do" — once AI can asynchronously and autonomously plan and execute, the new question facing everyone has become: "How do you learn to be the boss of AI?"

In this episode, beyond exploring Devin's user experience and technical leap, we also review the rapid development of the AI industry over the past year, and look ahead to what the big opportunities for AI entrepreneurship will be in 2025.

The new year is a time for imagination. AI technology is surging like towering waves, yet dive deep enough and you'll see that breathtaking progress always emerges from concrete, granular efforts. In the year ahead, let's continue to meet it with full expectation — and watch where these massive swells will carry us.

Happy New Year. May you have love and hope.

Hosts

  • Yusen Dai: Managing Partner at ZhenFund, investor in multiple leading AI companies including Moonshot AI
  • Koji: Host of "Crossroads," Co-founder of The Fair / Tandao

Timeline

PART 1: 2024

  • 02:19 One word to describe 2024: "Fast"
  • 10:06 The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed
  • 11:58 New requirements for AI application deployment: reduced hallucination, improved coding ability, computer use
  • 14:35 Is AI the era of Gen Z entrepreneurs? What do the new generation of founders have in common?
  • 17:03 Unexpected progress over the past year: pre-training hitting bottlenecks, Agent deployment accelerating, large model costs declining
  • 20:50 New product forms will emerge from "reinforcement learning" and "context"
  • 26:30 Four stages of AI programming development: ChatGPT → GitHub Copilot → Cursor → Devin
  • 30:22 Why encourage AI companies to go global? And who should go?
  • 32:45 Advice for Chinese entrepreneurs going global: figure out "what to build" + "how to promote it"

PART 2: 2025

  • 37:02 Why is Devin so exciting? A $500/month all-capable "intern"
  • 40:37 What future did we experience through Devin?
  • 42:36 Characteristics of the new paradigm: asynchronous experience, cloud virtual machines, knowledge accumulation, task-based pricing
  • 54:47 "Cursor is the programmer's Copilot; Devin is the boss's Scaling Law."
  • 01:05:08 Staying optimistic about AI: people, models, products — PMF fitting still requires patience
  • 01:11:27 In 2025, what application directions are more likely to land? Where are the boundaries of entrepreneurship?
  • 01:17:16 Emerging technology waves with hidden potential: Agent, scalable personalization, o3
  • 01:30:08 What does a generative AI Native big opportunity look like when fully formed?
  • 01:33:30 In 2025, investors' consensus and non-consensus

Further Reading

Devin

  • www.cognition.ai
  • "Just spent an hour with Devin — this is the first time I've seen what truly qualifies as A..." — Jike App
  • "[Agentic AI] Devin and Agent Cursor User Experience Comparison" — mp.weixin.qq.com

OpenAI o3

  • mp.weixin.qq.com
  • arcprize.org
  • mp.weixin.qq.com

Staff Executive Producers: Wendi, Zoe Post-production: Keyone Studio

About ZhenFund "Seriously Speaking" (此话当真) is a general business podcast produced by ZhenFund, where the investment team shares the latest trends and industry insights with leaders across various fields.

Founded in 2011, ZhenFund is one of China's earliest angel investment institutions. Since its inception, ZhenFund has been actively seeking out the most outstanding entrepreneurial teams and era-defining investment opportunities in artificial intelligence, chips and semiconductors, robotics and hardware, healthcare, enterprise services, new energy, cross-border global expansion, consumer lifestyle, and other sectors.

ZhenFund — Your First Stop for Entrepreneurship!

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