I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what happens when the cost of AI drops to basically nothing. And I think we’re closer to that than most people realize.
The $7.5 Million Number That Should Scare Big Tech
Ark Invest put out a number recently that stopped me in my tracks — $7.5 million. That’s roughly what it would cost to replicate ChatGPT’s core technology, not including the parental governor sitting on top of it. Let that sink in for a second. That’s not a moonshot budget. That’s a Series A round. That’s a rounding error for any reasonably sized company.
Which means we’re pretty quickly heading toward a world where enterprises can run their own versions of this tech in-house. And if you follow that logic out even a little further — we’ll all be able to buy our own licenses to install on our own servers for maybe $100 in a year’s time. Maybe less.
That’s not speculation. That’s just the cost curve doing what cost curves do with software.
The Web Might Look Completely Different in 12 Months
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to — I actually wonder if a lot of the web as we know it will be obliterated in a year’s time. Think about it. If you can just ASK an AI for the answer you need, why would you visit a website? Why would you click through ten blue links, wade through SEO-optimized garbage, scroll past three cookie banners and a newsletter popup.. just to find a paragraph that answers your question?
You wouldn’t. And that behavior shift is going to be MASSIVE.
Baidu just announced they’re launching their own ChatGPT alternative to the public in March. Every major tech company is scrambling to build their version. The floodgates are opening, and they’re opening fast.
The Google Trade
I’ll say something that might sound contradictory — I’d short Google right now. Not because they’re done, but because the market is going to panic. Search revenue is the cash cow, and when people start realizing that conversational AI could gut traditional search behavior, that share price is going to suffer. People will freak out.
But here’s the thing — Google has INCREDIBLE AI technology. They’ve been building this stuff for years. They’ve got the talent, the data, the infrastructure. So you let the price drop, you buy back in at a lower level, and then you watch their AI tech start launching business after business. The underlying capability is there. The market just hasn’t priced in the pivot yet.
That’s not financial advice. That’s just how I’m looking at the landscape right now.
Voice Is the Real Inflection Point
We’re just weeks away from widely available voice integration with these AI systems. And I think that’s going to be even bigger than the text interface. Once people can just TALK to AI — have an actual conversation with it — the adoption curve goes vertical.
I’m wondering how far away we are from the AI actually rolling up its sleeves and doing a lot of our work. Not just answering questions, but executing. Building. Managing workflows. We’re already seeing it with code generation and content creation. Voice is going to accelerate that behavior change dramatically because it removes the last friction point — you don’t even need to type anymore.
And then there’s the darker side. I watched a demo this week of AI-generated voice cloning that was utterly awesome and terrifying in equal measure. Identity theft is going to be rife. We’re building incredibly powerful tools and the guardrails are.. well, they’re not keeping pace.
Meanwhile, the Chip Makers Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank
The WSJ ran a piece this week about chip makers seeing ChatGPT stir strong demand for advanced processors. No kidding. Every company rushing to build AI needs compute power, and that means Nvidia and its competitors are sitting in the sweet spot. The picks-and-shovels play during a gold rush — it’s the oldest investment thesis in tech and it keeps working.
What I’d Actually Do Right Now
For anyone looking to launch a new website or business using AI tech — and I think NOW is the time to be building — here’s my practical suggestion: go to SiteGround, set up a new domain running WordPress. Simple and cheap. Get your foundation in place, then start layering in AI tools on top of it.
The window for early movers is open but it won’t stay open forever. When this tech costs nothing to run and everyone has access to it, the advantage goes to whoever built their platform and audience FIRST.
We’re in one of those rare moments where the technology is moving faster than the market’s ability to price it. That’s where opportunities live. The question isn’t whether AI changes everything — it’s whether you’re building while it does.
