Today’s AI Experience May Not Last

What will happen when AI companies actually need to be profitable?

The past few months have been my most productive in a long time, and a lot of it has to do with AI.

Claude Code and Codex have been great unlocks in my workflow. I also spun up an AI assistant that reminds me of my kids’ school schedule, monitors topics online, and is “learning” how to open issues to report its own bugs, then open PRs to fix them.

I can’t imagine going back to a world without these tools. And this is scaring me, because the current AI bonanza may not last.

The tokens we are burning for serious work and recreational projects are much more expensive than the prices companies are offering. We might be within a golden window of subsidized experience.

OpenAI and Anthropic internal documents report they are years away from being profitable. The introduction of ads in ChatGPT is essentially an admission that there are not enough paying customers to sustain the business in its current state. It’s a common pattern for tech startups: operate at a loss focusing on growth alone, gather as many users as possible, then start harvesting them by increasing prices without improving the experience. Is the future of AI one where the need to generate returns can be met only by squeezing the customers for all their worth?

Of course, one cannot predict the future. A lot of smart people are innovating on all fronts. The operational cost may go down significantly and new products might enter the scene creating paths for profitability that don’t require enshittification.

Regardless of where the industry will go, or perhaps especially because of this uncertainty, this is the best time to use AI. Let’s get as much leverage out of it as we can. It may not last.