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The Death Of Consumer AI Is Coming
They can’t have their cake and eat it too…
AI is in a really weird place right now. The public’s collective sentiment towards the technology is at an all-time low and is somehow still going down. Corporations have only just discovered how expensive and useless AI is and are poised to majorly U-turn on their AI rollout plans (read more here). Yet valuations of AI companies are through the roof. For example, OpenAI was only worth $29 billion back in 2023. Since then, its annual revenue has increased by roughly seven times, but it is expected to be valued at over $1 trillion in its coming IPO, or 34 times its 2023 valuation. There is a tension here that is begging to break, and it might soon. You see, over the past few months, people have put actions in motion that could lead to the death of consumer AI.
Okay, that is a bold statement, so I should probably define what I mean by death. I don’t mean the technology will no longer be available or used. I mean that the current vision of consumer AI — where it sits between us and what we want at every conceivable place possible — dies. LLMs, chatbots, and people dabbling with AI will most certainly still exist; that isn’t up for debate. But the consumer AI business model that this entire bubble is partially predicated on will no longer be viable.
