Unprecedented 51 Times: Mary Meeker’s Bombshell AI Report Confirms This Tech Revolution is Different

If you’ve sensed that the current artificial intelligence boom feels unlike any previous tech upheaval – be it mobile, social media, or cloud computing – you’re not wrong. Venture capital icon Mary Meeker has just unleashed a 340-page slideshow report that emphatically confirms it, using the word “unprecedented” a staggering 51 times to describe the breakneck speed of AI’s development, adoption, investment, and usage.

Meeker, founder and general partner at VC firm Bond and formerly dubbed the “Queen of the Internet” for her influential annual Internet Trends reports, has broken her reporting silence (her last was in 2019) to meticulously document this new era. Her latest opus, titled “Trends — Artificial Intelligence,” is packed with chart after chart illustrating just how AI is rewriting the rulebook.

“The pace and scope of change related to the artificial intelligence technology evolution is indeed unprecedented, as supported by the data,” Meeker states unequivocally in the report.

Consider these “unprecedented” milestones highlighted by Meeker:

• Explosive User Growth: ChatGPT rocketing to 800 million users in a mere 17 months is unlike anything seen before.

• Rapid Revenue Ramps: The sheer number of AI companies, and the velocity at which they are achieving high annual recurring revenue (ARR), is also in a class of its own.

• Plummeting Usage Costs: While the cost to train advanced AI models can reach a staggering (and “unprecedented”) $1 billion, the cost for users to interact with this technology (inference costs) has dropped by an astounding 99% over just two years, when measured per 1 million tokens.

• Hyper-Competitive Landscape: The speed at which competitors are matching features, often at significantly lower costs – including a surge in open-source options, particularly from China – is “unprecedented.” Meeker points to Nvidia’s 2024 Blackwell GPU, which uses 105,000x less energy per token than its 2014 Kepler predecessor, as an example of this rapid advancement.

• Foundational Bets on Custom Silicon: Tech giants like Google (with its TPU) and Amazon (with Trainium) are developing custom AI chips at scale for their cloud platforms. “These aren’t side projects — they’re foundational bets,” Meeker emphasizes, noting the rapid pace of this development.

However, there’s one area where AI hasn’t yet broken all records: financial returns. While venture capitalists are aggressively fueling the AI fire with investments, the companies building these AI marvels and the cloud providers supporting them are also burning through cash at an alarming rate due to the massive infrastructure investments required.

This creates a dynamic where consumers and enterprises benefit from rapid improvements and falling costs driven by intense competition. But, as Meeker cautions, “the jury is still out over which of the current crop of companies will become long-term, profitable, next-generation tech giants.” She concludes, “Only time will tell which side of the money-making equation the current AI aspirants will land.”

For the rest of us observing this whirlwind of innovation, Meeker’s message is clear: Just hold onto your hats. The AI revolution is here, and it’s moving faster and with greater impact than anything we’ve witnessed before.