Beyond the dark humor, this cartoon perfectly captures the current mood for many developers in the tech world. Not long ago, people were widely recommending becoming “prompt engineers.” That fad didn’t last long… and it shows just how difficult it is for humans to remain relevant at the current speed of AI development.
At Dalus Capital, we have spent years evaluating technology across Latin America, and what we are seeing with AI lately has us very excited. We are looking at the start of a real wave of adoption for businesses across many sectors and stages. Week after week, we analyze dozens of startups in the region using AI across completely different use cases to solve massive, structural problems and deliver tangible productivity gains for businesses.
We are convinced of the disruptive role that AI will play in Latin America. This is not just about copying a global trend, but about applying this amazing technology to skip developmental stages and historical inefficiencies in our region. That is why we are actively backing some of the best teams in the region with both capital and our experience.
I want to share our five most recent AI investments:
I know that any predictions for 2026 will probably be wrong, but I am willing to bet on two specific trends.
1. Volatility and opportunity
I expect 2026 to be a year of above-average market volatility. It will likely mirror what we experienced in 2025. However, this creates massive opportunities in the startup and venture ecosystem. Tremendous innovation is happening right now, but in a market with restricted liquidity. Constraints often breed the best creativity, and I think we are about to see the proof of that.
2. The acceleration of AI-native products
AI development will continue to accelerate. This will happen in foundational models and in specific, AI-native products.
• Foundational models will generate performance far beyond what we have seen so far. They will push into the upper range of human capability.
• Specialized products will finally have their moment. While the adoption of general interfaces like ChatGPT and Gemini has been fast, the uptake of specialized tools has lagged. I expect that to change rapidly in 2026. We will see a wave of products that don’t just chat, but act. They will solve complex problems just as expert humans do.
Looking Back
Personally, this year has been very demanding but also incredibly rewarding. I am confident the rewarding part will continue in 2026. I just hope the “demanding” part dials down a little bit.
I am grateful for you, my readers, for following this blog over the years. As always, your feedback is welcome.
Happy New Year to you and your families. Enjoy the last sunset of 2025 from the Mexican Pacific coast.
It’s been a few months since my last reading update, and as we wrap up 2025, I wanted to share a fresh batch of books that have sparked my curiosity.
If you’ve followed my blog, you know I’m drawn to topics that explain why the world works the way it does, whether through the lens of history, technology, economics, or the complexities of human behavior. The non-fiction titles in this list reflect that mix, ranging from AI and populism to the daily life of the Roman Empire.
In fiction, I have been drawn to emerging Latin American writers and global masters, including several recent Nobel Prize winners.
Below, you’ll find my latest reads, followed by a recap of the books I recommended earlier this year.
Continue reading
At Dalus, we are convinced that AI will create a massive disruption, unlocking huge productivity gains for businesses in the short and medium term. We have been actively investing in AI-native startups that are developing easy-to-deploy tools to solve specific business problems.
These companies are building products on top of LLMs to work more efficiently. For example, our portfolio company Darwin AI, which recently announced a new funding round, develops AI agents—think of them as digital workers—hyper-focused on sales processes. Another investment, Qomplement, automates data entry from PDFs to Excel and ERPs, cutting up to 90% of manual work. And we have other very exciting companies in our investment pipeline.💡
Continue readingA pretty accurate representation of AI versus existing digital infrastructure. That slingshot is about to launch.
What do you think happens when it does? 😬
I’m thrilled to share that our portfolio company, Darwin AI, has closed a $4.5 million funding round led by Base10 Partners. 🚀 We at Dalus are excited to be participating in the round alongside other previous investors, doubling down on our belief in the team.
Darwin AI is building the future of business operations with AI agents, with a sharp focus on the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets in Latam (try them here). The traction is already undeniable: they’ve onboarded more than 300 clients across 20 countries and have surpassed $2 million in annual booked revenues.
Continue readingThis past weekend I read the AI 2027 report, a fascinating piece of future foresight on the trajectory of artificial intelligence, released a few months ago. The report is long, dense, and full of tech jargon, but it lays out two vivid scenarios for how AI might evolve over the next five years.
The methodology follows the practice of “future foresight,” where scenarios are created and presented as a chronological story, without assigning them an exact probability of occurrence. This approach does not aim to predict the future, but to explore plausible paths, stress-test assumptions, and open space for informed debate about what might happen.
The report was created by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, and Eli Lifland under the collective name AI Futures Project. Their goal is to draw attention to the possible implications of AI’s extremely rapid progress. The intent is not to predict the future with certainty, but rather to generate realistic scenarios that can spark conversations about public policy and preparedness, recognizing that the exact forecast and timing could change.
Continue readingI came across this recent report from Coatue, a large global crossover fund investing in both public and private tech companies, presented at their EMW 2025 conference. It’s packed with data-driven insights into how the tech sector is evolving, especially in the context of the ongoing AI wave.
Despite an uncertain economic environment—tariff tensions, inflation, shifting interest rates—and a volatile geopolitical backdrop with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tech stocks have performed remarkably well over the past three years.
The report shows we’re still in the early phases of the AI innovation cycle. Some players, public and private, are already gaining traction and market value. But it’s too soon to name the long-term winners. It feels reminiscent of earlier tech waves that produced giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Meta.
At Dalus Capital, my fund, we invest at the early stages of tech innovation. What we’re seeing on the ground is incredibly exciting and signals that the medium-term evolution of the sector will be transformative. With strong execution and some luck, we hope a few of our investments will become winners in this wave.
If you follow tech, startups, or the future of AI, this is a valuable read.
Full report here.