If you listen to the noise in the tech market today, it is easy to assume that building a successful artificial intelligence company requires billions of dollars and a massive foundational model. However, history tells us a different story. Just as the commercial internet evolved from raw infrastructure to highly specific, user-focused applications, the AI industry is undergoing a very similar maturation. The real opportunity now lies not in building the foundation itself, but in deploying deeply integrated, workflow-specific software.
A compelling new feature in Rolling Stone UK, titled The Architects of Tomorrow: Furkat Kasimov’s Masterplan for the Application Layer of AI, perfectly captures this paradigm shift. The article outlines how strategic investors are quietly moving one level up from the foundational models to focus on practical, everyday business solutions.
The Qatlama Strategy
Furkat Kasimov is a prime example of this strategic pivot. Through his venture studio Qatlama LTD, which operates globally via AppLayerAI.com, he is focusing entirely on the application layer. The venture is aptly named after a traditional layered bread from Central Asia. This name serves as a brilliant metaphor for how modern AI businesses must operate. To succeed today, companies need to combine multiple layers of deep industry expertise with highly rigorous technical execution.
Instead of trying to do everything from scratch, Qatlama is designed to partner directly with deep domain experts. Kasimov looks for professionals who intimately understand the inefficiencies within their own industries, and he provides them with the technical infrastructure and go-to-market strategies they need to scale quickly.
Following the Smart Capital
The market data makes a strong case for this approach. In the first quarter of 2026, global venture capital funding reached a staggering $297 billion. While AI took the lion’s share of that funding, roughly 65 percent of the total was absorbed by just four massive companies. Competing at the foundational level is widely seen as impractical unless a founder has access to nation-state levels of capital.
On the other hand, the application layer secured around $60 billion during the same period. Investors are increasingly viewing this specific sector as the core opportunity for sustainable, long-term business growth within the AI economy.
The Power of the London Ecosystem
Building applied technology is rarely an isolated effort. It requires a dense, highly specialized ecosystem to thrive. London has firmly established itself as a global powerhouse for this exact kind of innovation. Since 2020, Britain has seen more AI companies founded per capita than any other European nation.
London alone is home to over 1,300 AI companies and a highly skilled workforce of 360,000 people. This includes 20,000 engineers with deep expertise in artificial intelligence. This rich talent pool provides the perfect launchpad for ventures like Qatlama to build and iterate rapidly.
Targeting High-Value Verticals
Kasimov understands that broad, unfocused software strategies simply no longer work in today’s highly competitive landscape. Enterprise AI increasingly rewards companies that build proprietary data flywheels and adopt strict, compliance-first architectures. Because of this, Qatlama is zeroing in on three specific, high-value global verticals where AI can drive immediate and measurable outcomes:
- Finance: The global AI market in fintech is expected to hit $99.09 billion by 2031. With the UK already serving as a central hub for financial technology, the market demand is incredibly active. Around 75 percent of UK financial firms are already utilizing AI, creating a massive appetite for solutions that reduce operational costs and improve regulatory compliance.
- E-commerce: Traditional retail distribution advantages are changing rapidly. By mid-2025, traffic from generative AI sources to retail websites saw an incredible 4,700 percent year-on-year increase. Furthermore, shoppers who arrive via AI recommendations tend to convert at much higher rates. Qatlama is perfectly positioned to capitalize on this structural shift as agentic AI in retail continues to boom.
- Marketing: The days of manual campaign management are quickly fading. Marketers are rapidly adopting generative AI tools to streamline their workflows. The payback period for these investments has shortened significantly, making automated, AI-driven marketing software a highly lucrative space.
Bridging the Value Gap
Ultimately, there is a very noticeable disconnect in the broader market today. AI adoption is widespread, but only a small fraction of organizations are seeing a truly meaningful impact on their bottom line.
This gap between simply adopting new technology and actually creating tangible business value is the exact problem Kasimov and his team aim to solve. By stepping away from the crowded race to build foundational models, Qatlama is focused on developing integrated, real-world business applications designed to deliver results you can actually measure.