The Economist calculated that at the current rate of AI investment, companies would need to generate $2.5 trillion in annual revenue just to break even. That’s more than the combined revenue of the entire tech sector.
Right now, the total AI revenue for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, SpaceX, and Meta sits at around $150 billion.
Interestingly, AI usage peaked in mid-2025; since then, the percentage of employees using AI in companies has dropped from 46% to 33%. Rather than an outright abandonment of AI, this data likely reflects a shift toward free models, which are more than enough for the simple tasks most employees face.
💬 OpenAI and Anthropic might go public before the end of this year, which means they’ll have to show real AI revenue. And it’s crucial for those figures to look realistic in terms of return on investment.