The next few years, I expect AI revenues to continue to increase 2-4x per year, like they have recently, which gets you to those kinds of numbers in 2027.
There won’t be widespread automation, rather AI will make money from a few key areas with few barriers, especially programming.
You could then reach an inflection point where AI starts to help with AI research. AI inference gets mostly devoted to that task for a while. Major progress is made, perhaps reaching AGI, without further external deployment.
Revenues would then explode after that point, but OpenAI aren’t going to put that in their investor deck right now.
You could also see an acceleration in revenues when agents start to work. And in general I expect revenues to strongly lag capabilities. (Revenue also depends on the diff between the leading model and best free model.)
Overall I see the near term revenue figures as consistent with an AGI soon scenario. I agree 100bn in 2029 is harder to square, but I think that’s in part because OpenAI thinks investors won’t believe higher figures.
I agree 100bn in 2029 is harder to square, but I think that’s in part because OpenAI thinks investors won’t believe higher figures.
So, OpenAI is telling the truth when it says AGI will come soon and lying when it says AGI will not come soon?
Sam Altman’s most recent timeline is “thousands of days”, which is so vague. 2,000 days (the minimum “thousands of days” could mean) is 5.5 years. 9,000 days (the point before you might think he would just say “ten thousand days”) is 24.7 years. So, 5-25 years?
The next few years, I expect AI revenues to continue to increase 2-4x per year, like they have recently, which gets you to those kinds of numbers in 2027.
There won’t be widespread automation, rather AI will make money from a few key areas with few barriers, especially programming.
You could then reach an inflection point where AI starts to help with AI research. AI inference gets mostly devoted to that task for a while. Major progress is made, perhaps reaching AGI, without further external deployment.
Revenues would then explode after that point, but OpenAI aren’t going to put that in their investor deck right now.
You could also see an acceleration in revenues when agents start to work. And in general I expect revenues to strongly lag capabilities. (Revenue also depends on the diff between the leading model and best free model.)
Overall I see the near term revenue figures as consistent with an AGI soon scenario. I agree 100bn in 2029 is harder to square, but I think that’s in part because OpenAI thinks investors won’t believe higher figures.
So, OpenAI is telling the truth when it says AGI will come soon and lying when it says AGI will not come soon?
Sam Altman’s most recent timeline is “thousands of days”, which is so vague. 2,000 days (the minimum “thousands of days” could mean) is 5.5 years. 9,000 days (the point before you might think he would just say “ten thousand days”) is 24.7 years. So, 5-25 years?
I don’t especially trust OpenAI’s statements on either front.
The framing of the piece is “the companies are making these claims, let’s dig into the evidence for ourselves” not “let’s believe the companies”.
(I think the companies are most worth listening to when it comes to specific capabilities that will arrive in the next 2-3 years.)