Artificial Intelligence

One nagging question around AI is what the long-term business models will look like and whether these companies will be able to charge enough to become profitable. We looked at the ten most popular paid consumer subscription apps to get a better sense of historical pricing power. On average, their prices have increased 1.7% faster per year than the rate of inflation. The bottom line: this is good news for ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, because it shows that if you get consumers hooked, you can gradually start raising prices.

The road to purchasing Meta Display led through a local Best Buy, where a mandatory demo was required to ensure proper fitting. In the end, I found the technology impressive, the use case still limited, and the fashion grade below average. The bottom line: Meta is making the right move by investing $20B annually into Reality Labs, but the return on that investment will take years.

At the surface: Oracle’s historic $300B contract with OpenAI cements Oracle’s position as an AI hyperscaler. Below the surface: The deal underscores just how early we are in AI, and how massive the infrastructure layer will prove to be. That foundation will power AI-native companies, which in turn will reshape industries and change the world.

Every now and again, innovators share a behind-the-scenes look at their work. Sometimes these breadcrumbs lead us down a dead end; sometimes, however, they lead us down a path of transformation and revolution, a permanent path that forever changes the…

Jony Ive and Sam Altman are making a bold attempt to create an AI-native, screenless computing product lineup that could change how we interact with technology. Ive appears motivated in part to reverse screen addiction and envisions a family of ambient computing devices that fade into the background while putting advanced intelligence everywhere. If successful, the products collectively could equal a few hundred million units a year, compared to the iPhone at just over 200m. Apple’s core business will likely not be threatened, given Ive's vision appears to sit alongside of and beyond the Mac and the iPhone. And any success he might have will likely motivate Apple to enter the space. Google faces more disruption if AI-centric gadgets divert users from the screens they use for Google searches today.

There’s a shift underway in how people use search and it’s not going in Google’s favor. Last quarter, 56% of total revenue was from Search, and I estimate the segment accounts for 90% of profits. The company is still dominant, but their Golden Goose is falling ill. From Eddy Cue's comments at the Google trial, Apple is seeing declining Safari searches (Google) to rising AI competition, the headwinds are real. The stock may look cheap, but without a clear plan for navigating the post-blue-links world, it's likely going to get cheaper.

We evaluated AI’s staying power based on March earnings from key tech providers. Growth rates are not slowing as quickly as many investors had feared, suggesting that AI’s momentum remains intact. Concerns about the pace of improvement in AI models may actually strengthen the case for increased investment. Fundamentals and the outlook for AI growth and investment are either stable or improving compared to three months ago — despite ongoing uncertainty around tariffs, macroeconomic conditions, and the speed of model innovation.

  Deepwater was grateful to host the Deepwater AI Summit in Minneapolis recently with 120 business leaders in attendance representing startups to Fortune 500 companies. We had in-depth discussions on leveraging AI in the enterprise, investing in AI and what…

​Don't let the recent downturn in the AI trade mislead you. The reality is that AI-powered service providers are struggling to keep up with demand, and AI infrastructure providers are unable to build capacity fast enough. All the potential that drove AI stocks higher in 2024 remains intact. At Deepwater, we continue to believe there are still 2–3 years left in this bull market.​

Deepwater’s second annual Frontier Tech Survey measures the American public’s viewpoint on emerging technologies, including AI, Electrification & Automation, the Creator Economy, and Relationship with Tech. Key Takeaways: AI – General usage is increasing but we are still early in the…

All four key hyperscalers guided CapEx spending in 2025 to grow at a faster rate than previously anticipated before the DeepSeek scare. This signals that the most advanced AI companies in the world believe the path to AGI will demand an obscene amount of hardware. Yet, despite this clear trajectory, many AI hardware companies are still struggling to recover from the losses triggered by DeepSeek.

What Does DeepSeek Mean for AI? Not as much as the market would have you believe. This past Monday, most publicly traded AI companies saw a sharp devaluation from the emergence of a new AI model called DeepSeek R1. DeepSeek…