AI moment could be bigger than mobile: Sam Altman

Looking at the growth and adoption of AI, Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI said it could be bigger than the mobile and the size of the internet.

During the Twilio Signal event in Singapore, the former and current CEO at OpenAI spoke to Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson via a pre-taped interview about how the AI moment is similar to that of the iPhone or the internet.

“When the iPhone first came out, there was a brief period of time where people said, well, I'm a mobile company, and my differentiators are mobile,” Altman explained.

“And, of course, that didn't make sense. Because everybody was going to be a mobile company, it'd be ridiculous not to say you're a mobile company, everybody has a mobile app that is what you expect.”

Altman said the same thing will be true for AI.

“Right now, you hear people talking about AI companies, that won't last for long. And that's okay because you can still create companies now you could never create before,” he said.

“There's still an incredible moment for small companies and startups. like Uber, it didn't work, and that didn't make sense as an idea before the iPhone.

“There's a whole bunch of things that didn't make sense before AI. But you've got to assume everyone's going have [AI] and go build a business that's got all of the inherent characteristics of a good business.”

Altman shared his view of what the future with AI looks like.

“If we can drive the cost of intelligence and the cost of energy down to zero or close to zero, never quite get there, but just make, create massive abundance in those two areas. Those are the things that limit us from everything else we want to do,” he explained.

“Right now, intelligence is just too expensive to do that for every customer, because it's actual human. The price of intelligence falls by like a factor of a million, then you can do stuff like that.”

Personalisation

Altman said one of the benefits to AI is that it brings personalised experiences to users.

“One of the promises, of AI is that everybody can get a personalised experience. It’s too expensive in a world without AI to have a dedicated team of people serving each customer or creating a personalised experience,” he explained.

“But with AI and by driving down the cost of intelligence, we can make that happen. It's something that we know customers really want.”

Athina Mallis travelled to Twilio Signal in Singapore as a guest of Twilio.