Even more so than usual, San Francisco will be the epicenter of the world’s startup scene this week, as founders, investors and other industry insiders come together at TechCrunch Disrupt, one of the leading events of the startup scene.

Unsurprisingly, AI will take center stage at this year’s conference, as investors are looking for opportunities to invest in the booming, yet still nascent field and founders of AI-related companies will do everything to profit from the AI boom and secure fresh capital for their ventures.

As Statista’s Felix Richter shows in the chart below, AI has sucked up an increasingly large chunk of VC funding in the United States in recent years.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In the first nine months of 2024, AI-related investments accounted for 33 percent of total investments into VC-backed companies headquartered in the U.S. That’s up from 14 percent in 2020 and could go even higher in the years ahead.

According to Crunchbase data analyzed by EY, AI deals accounted for 37 percent of the $38 billion raised by VC-backed companies in Q3 2024, with four of the 10 largest deals involving AI-related companies.

The latest increase in AI-related investments is still expected to be just the beginning of a longer-term trend.

As EY notes in its latest report on VC investments, most of the funds funneled into the field are currently focused on building the foundation for the technology, e.g. developing and training AI models.

Once this wave of investment ebbs, entrepreneurs will need to figure out ways to actually utilize the potential of AI, which will likely kick off a second wave of AI investments.