AI Eats the World

A VC's Guide to the Next Platform Shift

“In my lifetime, I’ve seen two truly revolutionary things: the first was the graphical user interface… the second is ChatGPT,” Bill Gates said not long ago. Consider the weight of that: the man who ushered in the PC era is putting a quirky AI chatbot in the same bucket as Windows. At the same time, OpenAI – the startup behind ChatGPT – hit an eye-watering $160 billion valuation barely a year after launching its product, a market cap Microsoft took decades to reach. No wonder early-stage investors in tech feel a familiar tingle: this could be the next big platform shift.

But before we all start high-fiving about finding “the next Internet,” let’s spill some coffee and ask the awkward question: if this technology is so world-changing, why do so few people actually use it every day? Yes, ChatGPT’s adoption broke records – somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of people worldwide have tried it or at least heard of it. You don’t get that kind of buzz without substance. It’s incredibly easy to try (just a website, no new hardware needed), so millions had their “wow” moment in record time. And yet: most folks used it once, said “Wow, that’s neat,” and never came back. The vast majority of us haven’t woven AI into our daily lives. In big companies, it’s the same story – nearly every Fortune 500 has an AI pilot project (even if it’s just the CIO fiddling with ChatGPT), but only a few have anything in production for their core business. There’s excitement in the air, demos in boardrooms, and slide decks galore.