Is it just me or does the AI tech better?

Do note, I play at KING level, I'm not a hardcore Civver by any means.
Anyway, today I figured I'd give Venice a try. Now I know they're all OCC so I figure that to counteract the harder-to-get-by science, I work to grab food-boosting wonders, tradition and all that. And the use of trade routes to my neighbors to syphon off a bit more science.
Anyway, I hit Guilds as my entry in the medievals and have just gotten NC up and running, I have 3 trade routes that each bring in science (3 beakers a pop), and a second city (Zanzibar). While I did miss out on the Temple of Artemis I got the Hanging Gardens and Tradition filled out.
I then proceed to check the demographics. I'm 10% behind the tech leader and I'm dead last.
This seriously never happened to me before. Does the early game AI tech faster then I'm used to or am I missing something here?

Every difficulty past Prince the AI gets a stat boost, and below Prince you get a stat boost (I think). And on Prince, everyone is even.

I'm not sure if the rate is faster or slower on King. I can tell you that the AI techs much slower than it used to on Diety. There was a change that added +5% tech costs for every city founded, and the Diety AI used to expand pretty fast. It may have something to do with the AI's in your game focusing more on fewer cities.

But the best thing to do is just take a few optimization measures yourself. Especially with Venice, make sure that you are getting Writing early, most often second, and then Philosophy should be your first tech of that tier. Then build the NC as soon as available.