[martin_drapeau]

The fundamental question is how to monetize AI?

I see 2 paths: - Consumers - the Google way: search and advertise to consumers - Businesses - the AWS way: attrack businesses to use your API and lock them in

The first is fickle. Will OpenAI become the door to the Internet? You'll need people to stop using Google Search and rely on ChatGPT for that to happen. Will become a commodity. Short term you can charge a subscription but long term will most likely become a commondity with advertising.

The second is tangible. My company is plugged directly to the OpenAI API. We build on it. Still very early and not so robust. But getting better and cheaper and faster over time. Active development. No reason to switch to something else as long as OpenAI leads the pack.

[jfoster]

That's like saying "how do you monetize the internet?"

There are so many ways, it makes the question seem nonsensical.

Ways to monetize AI so far:

Metered APIs (OpenAI and others)

Subscription products built on it (Copilot, ChatGPT, etc.)

Using it as a feature to give products a competitive edge (Apple Intelligence, Tesla FSD)

Selling the hardware (Nvidia)

[martin_drapeau]

20 years ago people asked that exact question. E-Commerce emerged. People knew the physical process of buying things would move online. Took some time. Sure, more things emerged but monetizing the Internet still remains about selling you something.

What similar parallel can we think of for AI?

[YetAnotherNick]

Assuming AI progress continues, AI could replace both Microsoft's biggest product, OS, and Google's biggest product, search and ads. And there is a huge tail end of things autonomous driving/flying, drug discovery, robotics, programming, healthcare etc.

[adamc]

Too vague. How would it replace Windows? How would it replace search?

The latter is more believable to me, but how would the AI-enhanced version generate the additional revenue that its costs require? And I think a lot of improvement would be required... people are going to be annoyed by things like hallucinations while trying to buy products.

In reality, as soon as a competitor shows up, Google will add whatever copycat features it needs to search. So it isn't clear to me that search is a market that can be won, short of antitrust making changes.

[YetAnotherNick]

You saw "Her" or Iron man? That's how it could replace windows. Basically entire OS working in natural language. Imagine a great human personal assistant who operates computer for you.

And searchGPT could replace Google. Also, wasn't the point of genAI is that it is cheaper than the entire stack of search? At least I know for some recommendation GPT-4 is literally cheaper than many companies in house models and I know companies who saved money using GenAI.

Not saying any of these would likely happen, but still it is not in the fantasy realm.

> people are going to be annoyed by things like hallucinations

That's like saying people are going to be annoyed by no delivery in online shopping. Yes it happened more often earlier, but we are arguing more on the ideal case if it could get solved. That's why I said if AI progress is good in my message, which means we solve hallucination etc.

[adamc]

OK, then I'm pretty sure it won't happen. I don't want to have a personal assistant replace an OS. I don't even want to talk to Alexa. And I'm not alone...

[WhyOhWhyQ]

They'll be selling overpriced licenses per computer to every fortune 500 company.

[overcast]

My guess would be using "AI" to increase/enhance sales with your existing processes. Pay for this product, get 20% increased sales, ad revenue, yada yada.

[MOARDONGZPLZ]

But OpenAI doesn’t lead the pack. How do you determine when to switch or when to just keep going with (potentially marginally) inferior product?

[martin_drapeau]

Sure it does. Ask any common mortal about AI and they'll mention ChatGPT - not Claude, Gemini or whatever else. They might not even know OpenAI. But they do know ChatGPT.

Has it become a verb yet? Waiting to peole to replace "I googled how to..." with "I chatgpted how to...".

[vrosas]

I see that a lot already. “I asked ChatGPT for a list of places to visit in Vermont and we planned our road trip around that!”

[TRiG_Ireland]

People relying on ChatGPT, or asking it for information, just confuse me.

[MOARDONGZPLZ]

You’re moving the goalposts a little here. In your other post you implied you were using OpenAI for its technical properties. “But getting better and cheaper and faster over time.”

Whether something has more name recognition isn’t completely related here. But if that’s what you really mean, as you state, “any common mortal about AI and they'll mention ChatGPT - not Claude, Gemini or whatever else. They might not even know OpenAI. But they do know ChatGPT,” then I mostly agree, but as an outsider it doesn’t seem like this is a robust reason to build on top of.

[martin_drapeau]

OpenAI's sole focus is serving AI to consumers and businesses. I trust them more to remain backwards compatible over time.

Google changed their AI name multiple times. I've built on them before and they end of lifed the product I was using. Zero confidence Gemini will be there tomorrow.

[atomsatomsatoms]

There would need to be significant capabilities that openai doesn't have or wouldn't be built on a short-ish timeline to have the enterprise switch. There's tons of bureaucratic work going on behind the scenes to approve a new vendor.

[skeeter2020]

I don't see how you charge enough for the second path to make the economics work.