If you have a revolutionary AI-based idea — one you're convinced will change the world and become the next OpenAI — I have some advice for you.
Bury that idea as deep as you possibly can, try your best to forget it, and go back to doing what you were doing before.
Why?
Data is the new oil, as the saying goes, and the more data a company holds, the better positioned it becomes to predict the future — and then to shape it.
If your idea is bad, there's no point investing in it. If it's good, the hourglass is already running out: it's only a matter of time before data giants like Google and OpenAI bring it to life themselves.
The new AI kingdoms understand their own potential better than any of us. The pace of change, innovation, product quality, and capability is accelerating day by day.
It's worth pausing on this point: not only are the changes becoming more dramatic with each passing day, but the intervals between one leap forward and the next are also growing shorter.
Despite the current trend of small AI companies sprouting up like mushrooms after rain, the fate of the vast majority has already been sealed. While they're still struggling to raise funding and ship early product versions, the AI giants will have already launched a finished product — significantly cheaper and far superior.
In a world where data is everything, the winner takes all. The biggest players will offer the best products at the most competitive prices, and everyone else will disappear.
So how can we still profit from AI?
First, as investors in these giant companies — because right now, we're only at the beginning. The valuations of AI-driven data giants will be no less staggering than those of today's tech titans, and quite possibly even greater.
Second, the AI capabilities already available to us at remarkably low prices can cut significant costs in business operations and staffing, boost productivity, and help us plan business moves more effectively. And that's no small thing.
Artificial intelligence heralds a genuine revolution — but the right way for us to benefit from it is as consumers. Any attempt to join those who are building it is, at this point, already destined to fail.