Mary Meeker/BOND AI Report - Comprehensive Version

This report sets out to compile foundational trends related to Artificial Intelligence. One of the key takeaways is the unprecedented rate at which the world is changing due to rapid and transformative technology innovation and adoption, particularly in AI. The pace of change seems faster than ever, and AI User, Usage, and Capital Expenditure Growth are indeed highlighted as unprecedented.

Driving this momentum is significant investment. Big technology companies are generating loads of cash, which they are increasingly directing towards AI efforts to drive growth and fend off competitors. Capital Expenditure (CapEx) spending by major tech companies has been on the rise for years, accelerating with AI's prominence. This spend is primarily driven by the need for compute to train and run AI models. Data centers are a key beneficiary of this massive AI CapEx spend, with construction happening at speeds resembling consumer tech cycles more than traditional real estate development.

AI's impact is broad and varied. AI usage is surging among consumers, developers, enterprises, and governments globally. Consumer adoption is unprecedented, with platforms like ChatGPT showing incredibly rapid user growth compared to past technologies. The report also details AI rollouts by tech incumbents across their massive user bases, from Microsoft Copilot chats to Meta AI users and Google's Gemini and AI Overviews.

Beyond the digital realm, AI is also ramping up rapidly in the physical world, becoming data-driven in areas like autonomous taxis, mining exploration, and agriculture. The expansion of low-cost satellite internet is enabling AI-native experiences for a new wave of global internet users, potentially bypassing traditional app ecosystems.

The AI market is characterized by rising competition among traditional tech companies, emerging attackers, and even sovereign nations. There's a rapid release of new AI models, including large-scale multimodal and language models. The performance gap between closed and open-source models is closing, leading to an explosion of usage by developers as falling token costs make powerful models more accessible. Geopolitical competition is acute, particularly between China and the USA, with China demonstrating rapid relevance and catching up in model performance.

Finally, regarding the impact on the workforce, a key message from the report, quoting NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, is that "you're not going to lose… your job to an AI… but you're going to lose your job to somebody who uses AI." AI is expected to affect every job, creating some while eliminating others, but ultimately transforming all. Companies like Shopify are already seeing reflexive AI usage as a baseline expectation for employees. AI is presented as a potential opportunity to close the technology divide and increase global GDP.

This report paints a picture of accelerating innovation, massive investment, and widespread adoption that is fundamentally reshaping technology and society.