A rational conversation on where AI is actually going | Benedict Evans
In a Nutshell
AI is a transformative technology on the scale of the internet or mobile, not an industrial revolution or existential threat, and we're in the 1997-equivalent stage where most valuable applications haven't been built yet. Job displacement fears are overstated because automation historically creates new roles and expands total work, and the hard part of most jobs isn't the automatable task itself but judgment, context, and client relationships that AI doesn't replace. Foundation models are becoming commoditized infrastructure with limited pricing power, so most value will accrue at the application layer while distribution and integration determine winners.
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Benedict Evans' most controversial opinion is that AI is as big a deal as the internet or mobile, and only as big a deal as the internet or mobile. He contrasts this with people in tech who think AI is more like the industrial revolution, and others who think he underestimates its significance. Smartphones and the internet were quite significant; the current podcast would not exist without the internet.
Evans compares the current state of AI to 1997 for the internet—very exciting, most stuff does not work yet, most things people will eventually do have not been built yet, and it is not clear how any of it will work. People who have already adopted AI assume everyone else is there too, but there is a very wide distribution of adoption. Within tech, some have bought clusters of Mac minis and no longer use Google. Outside tech, most people using AI do so every week or two. There is also a wide spread in maturity of how well the technology works.
Evans dismisses concerns about mass job losses from AI. Every time a new technology emerges, it automates away jobs and then unlocks new jobs that did not exist previously. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are increasing headcount. People claiming every big company will buy ChatGPT tomorrow and fire everyone in two weeks are described as morons. You cannot predict which things will be exposed to automation—you cannot look at a senior partner at a law firm and say 17% of their work could be automated.
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