{"id":4369,"date":"2025-08-08T18:05:36","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-industry-nervous-money\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T18:05:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:05:36","slug":"ai-industry-nervous-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-industry-nervous-money\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Industry Nervous About Small Detail: They&#8217;re Not Making Any Real Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1260\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress-assets.futurism.com\/2025\/08\/ai-industry-nervous-money.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"The AI industry is struggling to make a dent in its expenditures, as the vast majority of users remain content to use its free model.\" style=\"margin-bottom: 15px;\" decoding=\"async\"><\/div>\n<p>Like it or not, it&#8217;s safe to assume AI will be a\u00a0conversation that defines the rest of the 2020s.<\/p>\n<p>The recent launch of OpenAI&#8217;s latest model, GPT-5, comes as ChatGPT ascends<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>to the <a href=\"https:\/\/explodingtopics.com\/blog\/most-visited-websites\">fifth most-visited website<\/a> in the world, ahead of Wikipedia, Reddit, TikTok and Amazon. In just three short years, the software has <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/ai-destroying-generation-students\">upended education<\/a>, scrambled the <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/the-byte\/tech-workers-ai-lay-offs\">tech labor sector<\/a>, and ushered in something of a pandemic of chatbot-related <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/pyschiatric-researchers-risk-ai\">mental health problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But for all those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpolicy.press\/the-dangerous-combination-of-technology-and-capitalism\/\">technocratic bona fides<\/a>, the software that&#8217;s said to be kicking off the next industrial revolution has one major hurdle to clear: it has yet to make any real money.<\/p>\n<p>Despite some terrific promises about GPT-5&#8217;s capabilities \u2014 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went as far as to compare the chatbot update <a href=\"https:\/\/www.windowscentral.com\/artificial-intelligence\/openai-chatgpt\/sam-altman-is-afraid-of-openais-gpt-5-creation\">to the Manhattan Project<\/a> last month \u2014 the model&#8217;s actual improvements are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/gpt-5-sucks\">seriously underwhelming<\/a>, putting a damper on our timeline to reach the AI singularity.<\/p>\n<p>While that doesn&#8217;t really change much for the average Joe, it does tighten the immense financial pressure facing OpenAI and its peers.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the ridiculous cost of running millions of <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/ai-energy-use\">energy-intensive<\/a> AI queries every day, the company is struggling to make a dent in its expenditures, as the vast majority of users remain content to use its free model. Out of 700 million weekly users, OpenAI says only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/08\/04\/openai-chatgpt-700-million-users.html\">5 million<\/a> of them actively pay for their services.<\/p>\n<p>Put into monetary terms, in 2024, OpenAI was burning through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wheresyoured.at\/wheres-the-money\/\">$2.50 for every dollar<\/a> it brought in. Given that most successful startups take anywhere from 3-5 years to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ninetwothree.co\/blog\/how-long-do-startups-take-to-become-profitable\">turn a profit<\/a>, that might not necessarily sound like a death knell. After all, they&#8217;re going to keep growing, right?<\/p>\n<p>However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/business\/2025\/05\/15\/will-openai-ever-make-real-money\">current analysis<\/a> suggests that OpenAI \u2014 now six years into its <a href=\"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/source\/2019\/07\/22\/openai-forms-exclusive-computing-partnership-with-microsoft-to-build-new-azure-ai-supercomputing-technologies\/\">growth strategy<\/a> \u2014 won&#8217;t reach a positive cash flow until 2029 at the earliest, and that&#8217;s if everything goes according to plan.<\/p>\n<p>That might be well and good in China, where low-cost AI architects like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2025\/06\/china-ai-breakthroughs-no-surprise\/\">DeepSeek<\/a> are free to prioritize long-term research and development without pressure from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/janakirammsv\/2025\/01\/26\/all-about-deepseekthe-chinese-ai-startup-challenging-the-us-big-tech\/\">third-party investors<\/a>. But in the US, where a few massive tech monopolies rule the roost, time is money \u2014 and firms like OpenAI are spending their investors&#8217; cash like <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/ai-data-center-water\">water going through a data center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/retail-consumer\/openai-launches-gpt-5-ai-industry-seeks-return-investment-2025-08-07\/\"><em>Reuters\u00a0<\/em>pointed<\/a> out in a recent analysis, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft \u2014 the latter of which is backing OpenAI \u2014 expect to spend upwards of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/tech-ai-spending-company-valuations-7b92104b?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAjCH434jwmubbKPYt8j5ERjgP0R5VlUTzAE1mZ8RbrzpQ8TwGi9uUYbJlLTgS8%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6896164a&amp;gaa_sig=32FgZyAH_V7pcdiLAZp5gVJF2byKOtCD0oQPncViV3W81sKuKFeHotDUhTAeeOlotNgI_gv04ltOShuydiy6kw%3D%3D\">$400 billion<\/a> to keep the AI dream alive in 2025 alone. The promise of that kind of spending has sent tech shares through the roof, with Microsoft becoming the world&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/microsoft-just-became-the-worlds-second-4-trillion-company-60592a04?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAjGAGMPsV5iaN7d4skovac05f0vFa7O4SEUW2S4Uh7fW7tpF1EYrP8i_lkL7dk%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68961834&amp;gaa_sig=3PiUrl7k6PB2amCA6f7gyJUbtlmyZMPEoIRxs-LyiyvJ11mNUcuKAOyBUeor9WiF57oPBAU-zJa8V9gGAR1gSQ%3D%3D\">second $4 trillion company<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Those numbers might sound high now, but what they really signal is investor confidence that companies like OpenAI \u2014 currently valued at a hefty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/technology\/openai-valuation-300-billion.html\">$300 billion<\/a> \u2014 will continue to grow in a way <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/never-happened-history-tech-company-130002312.html\">never before seen<\/a> in history.<\/p>\n<p>Whether they&#8217;ll ultimately succeed depends on the tech itself. If the <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/openai-gpt-5-ai-agents?test_uuid=003aGE6xTMbhuvdzpnH5X4Q&amp;test_variant=a\">lackluster release<\/a> of GPT-5<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is any indication, the tech industry has a long climb ahead of it \u2014 and it&#8217;s all loose rock from here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More on AI: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/ai-bubble-pops-entire-economy\"><em>If the AI Bubble Pops, It Could Now Take the Entire Economy With It<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/ai-industry-nervous-money\">AI Industry Nervous About Small Detail: They&#8217;re Not Making Any Real Money<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/\">Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like it or not, it&#8217;s safe to assume AI will be a\u00a0conversation that defines the rest of the 2020s. The recent launch of OpenAI&#8217;s latest model, GPT-5, comes as ChatGPT&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1539,177,196,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-hype","category-artificial-intelligence","category-chatgpt","category-openai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}