Happy Friday, friends! 🙌
A lot of chatter this week about whether we're in an AI bubble.
Investors: "Google is spending a gazillion dollars. Microsoft is spending double that! Open AI is raising enough money to buy San Francisco, bulldoze it, and rebuild it in Python!
Will these companies be able to ROI all this spend?" 😱
Me: Who knows. Who cares. 🤷♂️
I'm busy doing actual work with these AI tools.
Let the billionaire venture capital bros worry about whether Open AI will be solvent a year from now.
You and I just need to ROI our $20 a month ChatGPT subscription.
And, according to Wharton, the business world is getting that ROI...
🧠 AI ROI
The Bullets:
1 million businesses now pay to use ChatGPT making it the fastest growing business platform in history.
That includes 7 million+ seats for ChatGPT for Work, with enterprise adoption growing 9× year-over-year.
According to Wharton, 75% of companies using AI saw actual, bankable ROI. (Academic-speak for “this isn’t just a shiny toy.”
ChatGPT now plugs in to Slack, Google Drive, GitHub and more so you can finally close 47 of the 936 tabs you have open in Chrome right now.
So what?
Well, here's the math. 800 million weekly active consumer users. And now 7 million+ ChatGPT for Work users. I don't know if they will win in the end, but they are definitely out front. Those that think ChatGPT is a chatbot with "spicy autocomplete" are sorely mistaken. This is a platform where work gets done.
Unsolicited Advice
Don't "dabble" in ChatGPT. Master it. Platforms like this one don't come along very often. You had Google, Amazon, and then Facebook. ChatGPT is the 4th mega platform. Oh... and don't listen to all the FOMO messaging out there. Your timing is perfect. 2026 looks to be the year AI will go from buzzword to business infrastructure.Archive Alley Opens “Tape-to-Stream” Lab for Creators.
🧠 AI PARTNERSHIPS
The Bullets:
Snap’s letting Perplexity’s AI move into its “My AI” chatbot and it’s not just a fling.
Perplexity’s AI is about to slide into the DMs of 940 million people or, as marketers think of it, “every human under 30.”
Perplexity’s paying Snap $400 million in cash and equity for the privilege.
So what?
A year ago, I had Perplexity pegged for the AI graveyard. No frontier model of their own? Just another “fancy wrapper,” I figured. But credit where it’s due: they built a damn good product and now, with Snap in their corner, they’ve struck a deal to sneak into millions of Gen Z pockets. Kudos! Perplexity seems to be here for the duration and is definitely a factor when it comes to AI SEO.
🔌 OH, AND THIS…
AI Labs to Doc Brown: "Hold my beer."
Happy 40th (holy crap!) to the iconic film, Back to the Future. 🎂
You remember the wild moment: Emmett “Doc” Brown yelling “1.21 gigawatts! Great Scott!”—or as he pronounced it, “jigawatts,” a quirky pronunciation of the word that means one billion watts.
Today's reality: We'll need more than a single bolt of lightning to power AI.
The IEA’s “Energy and AI” report forecasts global data-centres will burn through about 945 terawatt-hours per year by 2030. That's slightly more than the electricity consumption of the entire country of Japan.
In other words:
We're going to need a bigger boat.
I’m curious. Hit the REPLY button and let me know...
…did you like this issue of the AI Bullets Newsletter?
I really want to know and I would love to hear from you!
Russ
