The World’s Most Profitable AI Agents

Vivi Carter

Vivi Carter · 3, August 2025

“The 20 Highest-Revenue AI Agent Startups Globally.”

Unlike most startup rankings, which focus on fundraising rounds or sky-high valuations, this list goes straight to the heart of business reality: actual annual revenue. This makes it the most direct snapshot of which companies are truly commercializing “AI agent” technology—and which are simply telling a good story.

Within this elite group, you’ll recognize names on the cutting edge: Cursor for AI-powered coding, Harvey for enterprise legal teams, Clay for automated sales workflows, and Fyxer—an AI that lives inside your inbox and acts as a personal assistant. Collectively, they represent where money is actually being made, beyond the hype.

But there’s more to this list than just revenue. Two key trends stand out:

From Tools to Digital Employees

The biggest shift? AI agents are morphing from simple assistants into digital employees—autonomous “workers” that take on full tasks, deliver results, and are increasingly trusted with core business workflows: sales, legal, coding, support, and beyond. This marks a profound evolution in how companies “hire” and what tasks are being automated.

Fact: McKinsey estimates automation could handle up to 30% of hours worked across the US economy by 2030 (source: McKinsey, 2023).

Revenue Becomes the New Scoreboard

Gone are the days when the boldest vision or biggest funding round won the race. In this new phase, the true measure of a startup’s strength? Revenue growth and durable business models. Those who cash in first, win big influence—both with investors and customers.

Meet the 20 Leading AI Agent Startups

Let’s look at who made the list, what they do best, and what their breakout revenue says about the AI agent market.

Cursor: The $500 Million AI Coding Juggernaut

  • What They Do: An AI-native coding environment (IDE) where AI helps with everything from autocompletion to bug discovery, speeding up code production for companies like Stripe and Spotify.
  • Growth Stats: 360k+ paid users, billions of code lines generated daily. In May 2025, Cursor's parent company Anysphere closed a $900M round, tripling its valuation to $9B.
  • ARR: $500M (annual recurring revenue)
  • Revenue Per Employee: $3.2M+
Cursor AI

Glean: Work AI for Enterprise Search

  • Purpose: “Work AI” platform enabling seamless information retrieval across SaaS apps and automating content/workflows.
  • Key Markets: Used by companies looking to optimize collaboration and knowledge management.
  • ARR: $100M
  • Revenues per Employee: $102K
Glean

Replit: Code Apps via Plain English

  • Unique Edge: Democratizes coding: users can create full apps/sites using only natural language, no install required.
  • Vision: Make coding easy, fun, and accessible from the browser.
  • ARR: $100M
  • Growth: ARR grew tenfold in just six months; now seeking a $3B valuation.

Mercor: Smart AI for Hiring

  • Impact: Automates everything from resume filtering to candidate matching using AI, making recruiting fast and data-driven.
  • ARR: $100M
  • Revenue Per Employee: $4.5M

Lovable: The Fastest-Growing AI No-Code Platform

  • What Makes It Special: In just 8 months, grew to $100M ARR, enabling users to build functional web apps from a text prompt.
  • Revenue Per Employee: $2.2M

Other Stars on the List

  • Crescendo: AI/customer support platform blending automation and human touch ($91M ARR)
  • Harvey: Automates legal research, contracts, and analysis for Fortune 500 legal teams ($75M ARR)
  • StackBlitz: Browser-based, zero-config app development ($40M ARR)
  • Clay: AI-enhanced sales lead generation from 100+ data sources ($30M ARR)
  • Torq: No-code/low-code agent platform for security ops teams ($20M ARR)
  • Sierra: Multi-model conversational AI for branded customer support experiences ($20M ARR)
  • Sana: Workflow automation for enterprise knowledge and HR tasks ($20M ARR)
  • Nabla: Medical AI assistant reducing clinician admin time by half ($16M ARR)
  • Hebbia: AI for advanced document intelligence in finance and law ($13M ARR)
  • Decagon: AI-first customer experience engine ($10M ARR)
  • Robin: End-to-end AI contract management for corporate legal teams ($10M ARR)
  • 11xAI: AI SDR bots generating sales meetings autonomously ($10M ARR)
  • Fyxer: AI executive assistant inside Gmail/Outlook ($9M ARR)
  • Legartis: Multilingual AI-powered legal contract review ($5M ARR)
  • Artisan: Fully autonomous virtual sales rep covering 40+ languages ($5M ARR)

What’s Next for AI Agents?

This leaderboard signals two big things for anyone tracking the future of work:

AI as a colleague, not a tool:

AI agents are now “hired” for critical operations, not just menial automation.

Revenue is king:

Startups who can monetize fast dominate attention and define benchmarks; storytelling only takes you so far.

These trends are accelerating as companies seek both scale and efficiency—and as cutting-edge AI stacks become easier to integrate. If you’re considering building with or investing in AI agents, these companies are the benchmark.

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