For decades, conversations about entrepreneurship in Latin America have often focused on the same issues: access to capital, economic volatility, regulatory complexity, and limited pathways to scale globally.
However, with the advent of artificial intelligence, this equation is starting to change. Across the world, a new generation of founders is emerging that is very different from the typical venture-backed startups of the past decade.
Rather than raising large amounts of capital and building large teams, many companies are creating globally competitive businesses through small teams, AI-driven operations, and an international mindset from day one.
One of the founders who implemented this change is Ibrahim Hasanov, founder and CEO of MyUser. Hasanov started building hardware at age 6 and coding at age 11, building his company into an AI-powered sales platform designed to automate customer acquisition and support for businesses around the world. The company has become known for leveraging autonomous AI agents to handle prospecting, personalization, follow-up communications, and scheduling large meetings.
More importantly, Hasanov, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is representative of a broader trend. Founders use AI as the foundation of their business, not just a feature.
The question about Latin America is simple. When will this region produce its own Ibrahim Hasanov?
The ingredients are already available. Today, Latin America retains many of the conditions that helped earlier tech hubs emerge. The region has a young population, an increasingly sophisticated startup ecosystem, and a generation of entrepreneurs who are more globally connected than ever before.
Cities such as São Paulo, Mexico City, Bogota, Medellín, and Santiago have become innovation hubs that regularly produce successful technology companies. Venture capital investments, although cyclical, have created a generation of entrepreneurs with experience building and scaling startups.
What has changed in the AI era is that entrepreneurs no longer need the same resources that previous generations needed.
Historically, founding a global software company often meant building a large engineering team, hiring an extensive sales organization, and raising significant funding to support growth. Today, AI is dramatically reducing these barriers.
Now, entrepreneurs can use AI-based systems to build products faster, automate customer support, create marketing content, conduct research, and even generate sales leads. Companies like MyUser show how startup organizations can provide capabilities that once required entire departments.
These changes could benefit Latin America more than almost any other region. Many entrepreneurs in the region have traditionally had to build lean businesses out of necessity. Resource constraints drive creativity, efficiency, and resilience. These characteristics are becoming a strategic advantage in an AI-driven economy where capital is more important than speed of execution.
The next generation of innovative entrepreneurs in Latin America may not come from traditional technology backgrounds. Like Hasanov, who started building projects at a young age and focused tirelessly on solving real-world problems, the region’s future AI leaders may emerge from unexpected places.
They could be teenagers learning open source AI models. They could be college students creating global products from their dorm rooms. They may be small business owners automating an industry that has been inefficient for decades.
The founders of Latin America’s next globally recognized AI company may already be writing code in Bogotá, testing products in São Paulo, studying at university in Mexico City, or launching a startup in Medellín. If such a breakthrough happens, it won’t be because the region has finally caught up with Silicon Valley.
This may be because AI has fundamentally changed who participates in building the future.
