The AI unicorns that will soar, stagnate, and fall over the next few years, according to readers

A pair of driverless Waymo cars sit parked on a beautiful street (Credit: AP Photo—Terry Chea)

Sooner or later, the AI industry will consolidate. 

Which companies among today’s AI unicorns will survive the shakeout, which will be subsumed into larger companies, and which will perish is, of course, impossible to know. But the wide-ranging views regarding the current crop of high-flying AI startups are instructive in their own right, providing a useful gauge of industry and investor expectations.