Reference Architecture
The AI-Native Stack
Every component in an AI application — ordered by how data flows from a user request down to the chip. AI-native layers are interspersed with traditional infrastructure.
109
AI-native vendors
263
Traditional vendors
71%
Use a foundation model
3.2
Avg AI vendors per co.
Layer Details
Cloud & Networking
Traditional41 vendors
AWS319
Fastly15
Akamai6Auth & Identity
Traditional10 vendors
The Agent Loop
Agent Frameworks
AI-Native8 vendors
Embeddings
AI-Native3 vendors
Vector Databases
AI-Native6 vendors
RAG & Retrieval
AI-Native6 vendors
Model Serving
AI-Native11 vendors
Foundation Models
AI-Native12 vendors
AI Compute
AI-Native7 vendors
Browser Automation
AI-Native2 vendors
Output Processing
Guardrails & Safety
AI-Native6 vendors
Voice & Speech AI
AI-Native14 vendors
Image & Video Generation
AI-Native13 vendors
Async & Cross-cutting
AI Observability
AI-Native8 vendors
Evals & Testing
AI-Native9 vendors
Supporting Infrastructure
Data Pipeline
Traditional10 vendors
Billing & Payments
Traditional17 vendors
Analytics & BI
Traditional30 vendors
CRM & Support
Traditional40 vendors
Communications
Traditional38 vendors
CI/CD
Traditional3 vendors
Developer Platform
Traditional35 vendors
Imgix2See real stacks in production
Browse which AI companies use which combination of these layers.