推理的一阶导数：AI浪潮下的增长逻辑
The First Derivative of Inference
AI推理是当今规模最大、增长最快的技术市场，预计七年内将达到2500亿美元。直接销售或转售推理服务的公司增长迅猛，如Anthropic和谷歌云。在AI时代前的软件公司中，Datadog和Twilio作为“推理的一阶导数”脱颖而出：Datadog的LLM可观测产品数据量近一季增长近两倍，其约20%的AI客户贡献了约80%的年度经常性收入；Twilio则通过AI重构的语音服务吸引客户。当前周期呈现高度集中特点，少数客户能驱动巨大收益。对于非AI原生公司，核心战略在于如何转售推理服务或从其客户的大量采购中获益。
Tomer 用「推理的第一导数」这个框架讲透了一件事，Twilio 和 Datadog 的暴涨不是偶然，而是买推理的衍生需求，pre-AI 公司想活就得问自己怎么沾上推理的光。
In short : The fastest growing companies in AI & software all share one property. They are either selling AI directly, or they are reselling inference. At worst, the first derivative of inference.
The fastest-growing companies in AI & software are either selling AI directly or reselling inference. At worst, they are the first derivative of inference.
Inference is the largest & fastest growing market in technology today, surpassing the database market & projected to be three times the size within seven years at $250 billion.1, 2 By selling inference or indexing a business to it, they grow at spectacular rates.
Anthropic has booked $9b & $10b in consecutive months.3 Google Cloud is growing 63% at an $80 billion run rate.4 Most businesses selling inference are exploding.
For public software & infrastructure companies that predate AI, there are two standouts so far : Twilio & Datadog.
Both of these companies are benefiting as the first derivatives of inference. They don’t sell inference primarily, but anyone building AI systems needs to understand how they perform, & agentic companies with voice use Twilio.
“The number of spans sent to our LLM Observability product nearly tripled quarter-over-quarter.” — Olivier Pomel, CEO, Datadog Q1 2026 Earnings Call
As a result of AI growing so spectacularly, there are huge power law dynamics.
“We now have over 6,500 customers sending data for one or more of our AI integrations. Though this is only 20% of total customers, they represent about 80% of our ARR.” — Olivier Pomel, CEO, Datadog Q1 2026 Earnings Call 5
This is also true for another element of core infrastructure, voice & SMS via telephone.
“Voice reimagined through the lens of AI is increasingly an entry point to the Twilio platform for AI natives & enterprises alike.” — Khozema Shipchandler, CEO, Twilio Q1 2026 Earnings Call 6
A few customers can drive tremendous gains. This level of concentration is characteristic of the current cycle.7
For any pre-AI company, the key question must be put at the board level : how do we either resell inference or benefit from our customers buying huge volumes of it?
That’s the only way out of the Saaspocalypse.
来源：Tomer Tunguz 博客（VC 分析） · tomtunguz.com