Anthropic & OpenAI, the self-appointed 'Guardians of the AI Galaxy. ARD #54
Anthropic and OpenAI are self-appointed as the ‘Guardians of the AI Galaxy’ — launching frontier models behind a sheath of cybersecurity caution at the highest levels. ‘Boys-Who-Cried-Wolf’, or genuine guardianship? Both, probably. Some days more of one than the other.
Three Key Takes today:
(1) OpenAI’s CRO Denise Dresser: “staggering demand” — via AWS, eclipsing Azure. A $50B circular deal with Amazon. Microsoft Azure, OpenAI’s OG partner since 2019 with $13B committed, is now being routed around. The breathless-vs-endless reality of Enterprise AI sales via the major clouds. I called Amazon AWS the AI underdog back in August 2023 — thesis playing out.
(2) Enterprise AI diffusion is the endless reality. Aaron Levie’s enterprise IT tour thread: companies pivoting chat-to-agentic “on a dime.” Secular tech moves fast. Company-scale change does not. Compute, training, supply chain, rebuilt products — all take longer than demand.
(3) New Microsoft Surface laptop prices up 30-50%. Global memory shortages. A trend I’ve flagged for months. The AI Mainframe → Local Computing transition is showing up in your next laptop’s bill of materials.
Plus gadgets: Amazon Leo’s gigabit aviation antennas vs Starlink. The holy grail = satellite-to-phone, and Apple is leaning in.
Three things can be true at once: staggering demand, staggering capex, staggering skepticism.
AI-RTZ #1056 via Google for more. Stay tuned.
About AI Ramblings Daily and AI-RTZ
Both are daily. Both are free. Both are about AI. But they’re different mediums carrying different messages.
AI-RTZ is the morning text — a deeper written take on one idea, published daily morings. Today: post #1056.
AI Ramblings Daily is the afternoon video + podcast — my ad hoc perspective on the day’s news flow, around 20-25 minutes, with short 1-2 minute clips for sampling. Today: episode #54.
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Additional Links off today’s show
1. OpenAI’s “Staggering Demand” memo (Dresser)
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AI-RTZ #898 Microsoft post-OpenAI · #1048 Sibling rivals · Aug 2023 Amazon AWS AI underdog · #534 Amazon & Anthropic
2. Enterprise AI diffusion
3. Microsoft Surface & the RAM crisis
4. Gadgets — Amazon Leo & Starlink
(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here).
