AI revenues aren’t growing fast enough to justify the level of investment 💸
The Economist estimates that, at the current pace of AI investment, the industry would need to generate $2.5 trillion in annual revenue to break even. That is more than the combined revenue of the entire technology sector.
At the moment, the combined AI-related revenue of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, SpaceX, and Meta is approximately $150 billion.
Interestingly, AI usage peaked in mid-2025. Since then, the share of employees using AI at work has fallen from 46% to 33%. Most likely, this does not mean people are abandoning AI. Instead, it may reflect a shift toward free models, which are sufficient for handling simple tasks for most employees.
💬 OpenAI and Anthropic may go public before the end of this year, which means they will have to disclose their actual AI revenues. It will be especially important for those figures to look realistic in terms of whether these massive investments can eventually pay off.
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207August 3, 2026 20.2K 2
