Why AI may never be profitable

Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz

“I’d kind of assumed that the frontier AI labs (Anthropic, OpenAI, X) would reap the financial rewards of frontier AI development. But that might not be correct. AI might be more like electricity than Google. After all, who profited from electrification? It certainly wasn’t the inventors. Or their companies. The people who got rich from electricity were the ones who used it to make other things. Profits went to the factory owners who electrified their factories and the folks who sold light bulbs. The electric companies became utilities. I had assumed that the companies currently building AI would become the next Google and Bing. However, many believe that the actual models are more likely to become cheap and interchangeable, like electricity. Or Wi-Fi. Or railroads.” (03/23/26)

https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/why-ai-may-never-be-profitable