An “AI Revolution is not just at our doorstep, but is actively shaping the future of the tech world,” he said after OpenAI’s historic fund-raise.
Wall Street for now stands firmly with Ives and has sent the stock price of AI-chasing tech giants to record levels since ChatGPT burst on the scene in late 2022.
Nvidia, the AI-chip juggernaut, in June briefly became the world’s biggest company by market valuation amid the frenzy.
But according to media reports, OpenAI will lose $5 billion this year on sales of $3.7 billion.
The company told investors the pain will be short-lived and that revenue will rise exponentially, hitting a whopping $100 billion in 2029.
More than poems?
The question is whether people will pay for generative AI services such as Microsoft’s CoPilot that depends on OpenAI technology, said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi, who pushed back against the idea of an AI bubble.
“Consumers are going to start going beyond the write-the-poem-for-me stuff,” Milanesi said.
“It will become part of our lives and we will depend on it, because we will be forced to.”
But for now, the generative AI business model is tough, since data center and computing power costs dwarf revenue, according to analysts.
Still, Milanesi doesn’t think the tech industry is getting carried away with generative AI.
“How this shakes out is the way to think about it, not so much the bubble bursting and everyone losing out,” Milanesi said.
“It’s a bit of a Darwin situation where the survival of the fittest is happening,” she said.
And while there is more excitement about generative AI than real proof of its success, the technology is moving exceptionally fast.
“Investors are not sure what the destination is, but everybody is jumping on the boat and they don’t want to be left behind,” Enderle said.
“That typically ends badly,” he said.