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AI Eats the World: Benedict Evans on the Next Platform Shift

AI Eats the World: Benedict Evans on the Next Platform Shift

18 segments available

AI is reshaping the tech landscape, but a big question remains: is this just another platform shift, or something closer to electricity or computing in scale and impact? Some industries may be transformed. Others may barely feel it. Tech giants are racing to reorient their strategies, yet most people still struggle to find an everyday use case. That tension tells us something important about where we actually are. In this episode, technology analyst and former a16z partner Benedict Evans joins General Partner Erik Torenberg to break down what is real, what is hype, and how much history can guide us. They explore bottlenecks in compute, the surprising products that still do not exist, and how companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and OpenAI are positioning themselves. Finally, they look ahead at what would need to happen for AI to one day be considered even more transformative than the internet. (00:00) Intro (01:07) AI's Impact, Platform Shifts and Historical Comparisons (03:12) Generative AI: Potential and Challenges (06:12) AI's Market Dynamics and Investment (08:28) AI Deployment and Use Cases (10:22) AI's Future and Speculations (19:33) Generative AI in Practice (29:27) New Behaviors and Market Opportunities (31:29) Understanding Law Firms' Needs (32:05) The Role of User Interfaces (33:40) Machine Learning and Interns (35:26) The Evolution of Tech Products (39:43) The Competitive Landscape of AI (43:17) The Future of AI Models (45:27) Impact on Various Industries (46:49) Apple's Unique Position (50:08) Strategic Questions for Tech Giants (58:44) Reflecting on AI's Potential Resources: Follow Benedict on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benedictevans/ Benedict's ‘AI eats the world’ presentation: https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see [a16z.com/disclosures](http://a16z.com/disclosures).

Segments Timeline

1
0:00 - 1:26
1:25 duration303 words

Intro

"Chat GPT has got 8 or 900 million weekly active users. And if you're the kind of person who is using this for hours every day, ask yourself why five times more people look at it, get it, know what it ..."

2
1:26 - 3:14
1:48 duration372 words

AI's Impact, Platform Shifts and Historical Comparisons

"now like we've had the Google one and we've had the Google one and the Microsoft one. We've had the Bane one and the BCG one. We've had the one from from Accenture and the one from our ad agency. Um s..."

3
3:14 - 6:17
3:03 duration645 words

Generative AI: Potential and Challenges

"all of this, how many times have we get again, how many times have we gone through all of this before? You know, they it's funny. I went on a podcast this summer and I sort of opening line I said some..."

4
6:17 - 8:42
2:25 duration557 words

AI's Market Dynamics and Investment

"sustaining. Um, you feel free to quibble with the definition of, you know, sustaining disruptive, but sustaining in the sense that maybe more of the value went to incumbents or or or companies that ex..."

5
8:42 - 10:44
2:01 duration479 words

AI Deployment and Use Cases

"computing and then you got the very overexited people living in group houses in Berkeley who think you know this is as big as fire or something. Well, well, great. Um, but but but does this create new..."

6
10:44 - 19:33
8:49 duration1856 words

AI's Future and Speculations

"scurves kind of going up slightly someone said well what's the axis on this diagram I you know I don't want to kind of get into you know is this is this 5% bigger than than internet or is it 20% bigge..."

7
19:33 - 29:29
9:55 duration1968 words

Generative AI in Practice

"The first of them is I think we've had this sort of a a bifocation of what all the questions are. So there are now very very detailed conversations about chips and then very very detailed conversation..."

8
29:29 - 31:31
2:02 duration474 words

New Behaviors and Market Opportunities

"some of the new use cases, you know, we're you know, getting in strangers cars, you know, we mentioned lift an Uber or sort of, you know, dating people you met via an app or um sort of um you know, le..."

9
31:31 - 32:22
0:51 duration191 words

Understanding Law Firms' Needs

"law firms work. Law firms want to buy a thing that sells want to buy legal discovery software management. You know, they don't want to, you know, go and write their own by do API calls. I mean, very, ..."

10
32:22 - 33:41
1:18 duration277 words

The Role of User Interfaces

"is doing that some of what a guey is doing and the obvious thing that a gooey is doing is that it enables office to have 500 application 500 features and you can find them all at least it's you don't ..."

11
33:41 - 35:34
1:53 duration377 words

Machine Learning and Interns

"always used to talk about machine learning as giving you infinite interns. So, you know, imagine you've got a task and you've got an intern and the intern doesn't know what venture capital is. >> How ..."

12
35:34 - 40:02
4:28 duration1008 words

The Evolution of Tech Products

"and all of these products have evolved a huge amount over time. So some of it is like you grow towards realizing what you could do with this like you realize that's just a Google query now. You realiz..."

13
40:02 - 43:27
3:25 duration612 words

The Competitive Landscape of AI

"hours a day in them, then you've got this opinion about, oh, I like Claude's tone of voice more than I like GBT and I like GBT 5.1 more than GBT 4.9 or whatever the hell it's called. If you're using t..."

14
43:27 - 45:52
2:24 duration461 words

The Future of AI Models

"are going to be most important in determining um you know who who's going to gain you know durable competitive advantages or or how this competitive is going to competition is going to play out. Well,..."

15
45:52 - 47:12
1:20 duration268 words

Impact on Various Industries

"chatbot a thing instead of asking Google? Even if it's Google from from Google's point of view, well, I'll ask Google's chatbot. It's fine. But as a marketer, what does that mean? What happens if I as..."

16
47:12 - 50:22
3:10 duration675 words

Apple's Unique Position

"agentic multiplatform e-commerce in real time with no prompt injection problems and zero error rates. Well, that sounds good. I mean, has anyone got that working? Like, no. Open eye open Google and Op..."

17
50:22 - 58:49
8:27 duration1649 words

Strategic Questions for Tech Giants

"mean to Facebook or what does it mean to Salesforce? What does it mean to you know Uber? And then right back to what we were saying at the beginning of this conversation you know what does this mean f..."

18
58:49 - 1:01:25
2:35 duration521 words

Reflecting on AI's Potential

"you you're doing a presentation, you say, "Oh, this is actually bigger than the internet or may maybe this is like like computing." Um what would need to be true? What what would need to happen? What ..."