Everyone's betting on AI. Most are betting on the wrong layer. The week's venture deals tell a clear story about where capital thinks the value sits right now: Layer 1 (Foundation models). OpenAI has raised $120B in total. Effectively infrastructure. The bet here is enormous, but the margin story is already getting complicated.

Layer 2 (Vertical agents) - Harvey (legal) at $11B. Basis (accounting) just hit a unicorn valuation of $1.15B. These are agentic systems replacing knowledge-work workflows, not augmenting them. Strong early traction where buyers are motivated (BigLaw, enterprise finance).

Layer 3 (Orchestration) - The quietest layer, and probably the most interesting. Who manages multi-agent workflows? Who audits them, governs them, and ensures they don't hallucinate at scale?

Gartner forecasts 40% of enterprise applications will embed task-specific agents by the end of 2026, up from under 5% last year (https://lnkd.in/gdgTYw8e).

If that's even half right, the orchestration layer becomes essential infrastructure fast. The foundation model race is largely decided. The vertical agent race is early but crowded. Orchestration is where the next defensible position gets built.