One of the fascinating things about what's happening in AI is that, rather than be a few distinct moments of technological disruption that unlocks new opportunities for startups (e.g., when Apple launched the AppStore, or integrated a GPS chip into the iPhone), I believe we're going to have a rolling thunder of AI breakthroughs that catalyze startup opportunities.
The flip side of these “discontinuous innovations” is that an approach that would seem to create a lot of value now may be in the dust tomorrow. For one small example, RAG as a common dev term, did not exist a year ago. What new design patterns will emerge within the next year let alone the next 3 or 5 or even 10 years? I think this provides an interesting conundrum when investing (money or personal attention) at the AI infrastructure or tooling layer. But if one focuses on identifying the right business problems (aka application layer) then surprisingly emergent, radical tooling changes can be managed - without (hopefully) huge user/customer impact.
Agree! 100%. I am curious about what this means for firms already in today's fray. How should one think of distribution? How should one think of building the firm? The underlying assumption is that (a) there will be consolidation in every use-case already active as critical mass for profitable business will be a fleeting goal for most, (b) a big reason will be shifting to outcomes, and (c) an organization's need to reduce cognitive and governance overheads.
The flip side of these “discontinuous innovations” is that an approach that would seem to create a lot of value now may be in the dust tomorrow. For one small example, RAG as a common dev term, did not exist a year ago. What new design patterns will emerge within the next year let alone the next 3 or 5 or even 10 years? I think this provides an interesting conundrum when investing (money or personal attention) at the AI infrastructure or tooling layer. But if one focuses on identifying the right business problems (aka application layer) then surprisingly emergent, radical tooling changes can be managed - without (hopefully) huge user/customer impact.
This is true. The 'delta' between the hyped expectations of AGI coming too soon and reality is too wide this time. There's a lot to show for.
Agree! 100%. I am curious about what this means for firms already in today's fray. How should one think of distribution? How should one think of building the firm? The underlying assumption is that (a) there will be consolidation in every use-case already active as critical mass for profitable business will be a fleeting goal for most, (b) a big reason will be shifting to outcomes, and (c) an organization's need to reduce cognitive and governance overheads.