𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 (𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟭 𝗼𝗳 𝟮)

There is no doubt that we are living through an “internet moment”. Remember 1999? When “the internet” irrupted and none of us could make sense of it. All sector taxonomies went out the window: on one side we wanted to track it, on the other hand it was clear everything was going to be “internet-enabled”. In the end, as often, we completely overestimated the impact of the innovation short-term, and underestimated the impact long-term. 35 years on (and yes, it is 35 years), and a couple of twists later (including the advent of unmetered broadband and smartphones), the revolution is on.

The same is unfolding with AI, right in front of our eyes. Nobody – but nobody – can predict how it is going to play out. And it may take quantum computers and/or fusion energy to make its full impact felt, but AI is going to transform the way things are (not just the way we run things). I am no big fan of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) predictions as we have difficulty in even defining what (human) intelligence is. But there is no doubt that AI is reshaping the world.

𝗔 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀:
👉 The technology is still clunky (unreliable; rooted in dubious copyright claims; still not able to explain itself, etc) but the progress is just remarkable.
👉 Much of the use is individuals (looking for shortcuts – for good and bad reasons) rather than corporates (who are more concerned about litigation, data security, etc).
👉 However, corporates are responding to the productivity imperative. Beyond the big AGI claims lie tons of activities and verticals which are benefiting from AI – despite its current flaws and limitations. Just a few examples:
▫️ Activities: research (e.g. Google’s NotebookLM); Excel (e.g. Anthropic’s Claude Cowork)
▫️ Verticals: legal (review of documents; review of case law); software development (coding); healthcare (diagnosis, X-ray analyses, drug development, etc)

AI is progressing at an exponential pace, and agentic AI (AI taking the seat as opposed to answering (humans) questions) is raising the stakes: all these dollars are going to have a considerable impact.

So, the debate is now moving on to whether to regulate or not (see the debate in the US). And if we regulate, how best to regulate it (see EU’s AI regulation challenges). And what about China?

More on that in Part 2.

Sources:
>https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q1-2026-european-venture-report
‍>https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/anthropic-says-topped-30-billion-annualized-revenue
‍>https://www.britannica.com/science/human-intelligence-psychology