Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.

Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

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A week before OpenClaw exploded, I recorded a prescient conversation with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind. We talked about what happens when AI starts to seem conscious ? even if it isn?t. Today, you get to hear our conversation.

Mustafa has been sounding the alarm about what he calls ?seemingly conscious AI? and the risk of collective AI psychosis for a long time. We discussed this idea of the ?fourth class of being? ? neither human, tool, nor nature ? that AI is becoming and all it brings with it.

Skip to the best bits:

(03:38) Why consciousness means the ability to suffer

(06:52) "Your empathy circuits are being hacked"

(07:23) Consciousness as the basis of rights

(10:47) A fourth class of being

(13:41) Why market forces push toward seemingly conscious AI

(20:56) What AI should never be allowed to say

(25:06) The proliferation problem with open-source chatbots

(29:09) Why we need well-paid civil servants

(30:17) Where should we draw the line with AI?

(37:48) The counterintuitive case for going faster

(42:00) The vibe coding dopamine hit

(47:09) Social intelligence as the next AI frontier

(48:50) The case for humanist super intelligence

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Where to find Mustafa:

- X (Twitter): https://x.com/mustafasuleyman

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mustafa-suleyman/

- Personal Website: https://mustafa-suleyman.ai/

Where to find me:

- Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/

- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.

Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

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At Davos 2026, the mood was unlike any previous World Economic Forum gathering. With Donald Trump arriving amid escalating geopolitical tensions and European leaders sounding alarms about sovereignty, I recorded live dispatches from the ground. In this special episode, I bring together observations from four days at the annual meeting, tracking the seismic shifts in global order alongside the practical realities of AI adoption in the enterprise.

Skip to the best bits:

(00:38) Day one at Davos

(02:10) Three recurring themes through the week

(03:55) Day three at Davos

(05:12) Mark Carney's stirring speech

(05:52) Why European leaders are sounding the alarm

(06:51) Why technological sovereignty just became urgent

(09:31) Day four at Davos

(12:59) What leaders really have to say on AI adoption

(14:07) The case for only using open source models

Where to find me:

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.

Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

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In this episode, Peter McCrory, Head of Economics at Anthropic, unpacks the company's new Economic Index report. His team analysed millions of real Claude conversations to map exactly where AI is augmenting human work today and where it isn't. We explore the striking divergence between API and chat usage, why businesses need to extract tacit knowledge to unlock AI's potential, the "hollow ladder" risk for junior workers, and Anthropic's estimate that AI could add 1.0-1.8% to annual productivity growth over the next decade.

Skip to the best parts:

(00:00) Anthropic's Economic Index report

(01:20) Claude's two distinct usage patterns

(06:22) Examining AI's impact on the labor market

(09:20) Where most businesses think too small

(12:03) Why extracting tacit knowledge is so important

(20:33) How do we create the next generation of experts?

(23:22) Why people need to develop cognitive endurance

(29:55) Long-term vs. short-term productivity

(35:56) The future of human knowledge

(37:46) Could AI's greatest impact go unmeasured?

(41:55) How task bottlenecks have moved

(46:09) Implementation resembles a staircase - not a curve

(50:47) "Capability doesn't instantly deliver adoption"

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Where to find me:

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. 

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

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In this episode, I share my outlook for 2026 and explain why AI tools now feel genuinely different. I explore how the act of making has been transformed, why authenticity and meaning will become the new scarcity, and whether the foundations of energy and capital can hold. I also address the question I was asked most in 2025: when will the AI bubble burst? 

Skip to the best bits: 

00:00 Why AI feels different in 2026 

01:59 The six shifts in AI 03:32 The "done list" era 

06:43 From execution to orchestration 

09:02 The agentic coding revolution 

11:10 What's a Chief Question Officer? 

13:58 Three ways value will be created 

16:27 "Claude told me to use ChatGPT" 

18:02 The AI usage gap 

20:30 The new moat in 2026 

26:10 How does solar growth affect AI? 

28:53 Revisiting the bubble or boom question 

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Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. 

Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. 

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

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In this episode, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and I discuss how a strong US economy, high asset valuations, and rapid AI adoption are sitting in uneasy tension. We explore what past technology cycles can teach us, why safety nets struggle to address disruption, and where genuine optimism still makes sense. 

This is a January 2025 rerun, which remains strikingly relevant today. 

We covered: 

(01:09) State of the US economy 

(02:28) "That end of 1999 feeling" 

(05:08) Insights and lessons from the dotcom bubble 

(09:57) Why today's market is different 

(13:44) Understanding AI's role in labor displacement 

(16:05) Are LLMs "souped-up autocorrect"? 

(20:14) How job displacement erodes communities 

(23:40) 2025's looming threat of tariffs 

(26:16) AI's surprising impact on globalization 

(30:15) Can markets address inequality? 

(33:06) The maximum level of sustainable national debt 

(36:31) When should the Fed raise interest rates? 

(38:57) The need to revitalize local economies 

(44:53) Did Paul's 2025 predictions come true? 

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Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. 

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

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What made 2025 special? 

In this episode, I reflect on the past year and what it revealed: a K-shaped divide. On one track, AI models are now doing hours of high quality work, improving at exponential pace, and shifting how we work from doing to judging. On the other, organisations and the broader economy are struggling to keep up. Stay to the end for my seasonal film recommendation. 

I cover:

(00:00) Intro 

(00:45) The state of tool usage in 2025 

(6:10) The gap between AI progress and organizational adoption 

(9:53) AI?s shockingly rapid revenue growth 

(11:17) The biggest mistake smart people make with AI 

(14:14) ?The inescapable need for physical infrastructure 

(16:06) What everyone was asking in 2025 

(18:08) The new winners of the AI economy 

(20:48) Why ?K? is the letter of 2025 

(24:08) Seasonal movie recommendation 

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Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

--- 

In this episode, I?ve distilled a year of extraordinary dialogue into one 20-minute briefing. I?ve spent 2025 in conversation with the architects of our future - the builders and thinkers redefining AI, energy, and the global economy.

These are the "eureka" moments from my most exclusive interviews. From the future of "protopia" with Kevin Kelly to the hidden tech gaps with Dan Wang, this is your strategic roadmap for the exponential age.

What you'll hear about:

Part 1: AI as a general purpose tech

Kevin Weil: The heuristic for startupsMatthew Prince: The ?Socialist? pricing debateTyler Cowen: This will stifle the AI boomNick Thompson: The "NBA-ification" of JournalismKevin Kelly: From utopia to protopiaKevin Kelly: Technology as a "possibility factory?

Part 2: How work is changing

Steve Hsu: The future of educationThomas Dohmke: The inspectability turning pointBen Zweig: The new role for entry-level workersBen Zweig: Why are there so many hiring freezes?Ben Zweig: The eroding signal of higher education

Part 3: The physical world, compute, and energy

Greg Jackson: The "crossing the road" metaphorGreg Jackson: Building a ?show don?t tell? companyDan Wang, The "physical reality" of AIPart 4: The changing US China landscapeDan Wang: The West?s hidden tech gapJordan Schneider: The two types of accelerationismJordan Schneider: Why the US can learn from China

Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov and Hannah Petrovic

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

--- 

In this episode, I look at the next 24 months of AI. The technology is improving rapidly ? so what could hold back widespread transformation of how we work and live? I dig into the real constraints, from electricity shortages to institutional inertia, why mid-2026 matters for enterprise AI, and why so many people remain uneasy about a technology they use every day. 

I cover: 

(00:03) Predicting AI's next two years 

(01:50) How life changing are chatbots, really? 

(03:36) Our current biggest AI constraint 

(07:58) The remarkable increase in token efficiency 

(10:43) Why mid-2026 is a crucial turning point 

(13:01) Do we actually want AI in our lives? 

(15:28) Should organizations wait to jump in? 

(16:39) How is OpenAI reckoning with Gemini? 

(18:41) The market's reaction to OpenAI's code red 

(19:32) Where will value accrue in the supply chain? 

(20:51) What's the best strategy for middling powers?

Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. 

Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. 

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this podcast or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

--- 

In this episode, I reflect on the third anniversary of ChatGPT's launch as a marker of where we are in the exponential age. As a product, ChatGPT captures the speed of technological progress, the new behaviours emerging around it and the widening gap between innovation and institutional change ? all symptomatic of the era I called the exponential age in my 2021 book.

 I cover: 

(00:09) How ChatGPT became synonymous with AI 

(01:41) The rise of the reasoning model 

(03:53) Why NVIDIA's chip cycle is exponential 

(05:53) How general-purpose tech changes everything 

(07:59) The subtle power of building bespoke software 

(11:46) The iPhone calculation that breaks everything 

(14:53) Who profits from a general-purpose technology? 

(16:38) The software market example 

(20:07) Are we headed towards another .com crash? 

 

Where to find me: 

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: /azhar 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The AI industry is sending mixed signals, with markets turning red while teams report real productivity gains. In this session I explore why we are living in a split reality, where individuals move faster with these tools but the wider economy is ambivalent. We once assumed juniors would get the biggest lift from AI, yet the newer agentic tools seem to reward senior workers who know how to structure problems and judge output. 

In this podcast, I look at the evidence behind that shift and explain how these gains collide with the slow grind of organisational processes.

 

I cover: 

(00:00) AI productivity: A split reality 

(00:31) Decoding the stock market drop 

(02:53) Unpacking three years of AI productivity data 

(06:09) Does AI help junior or senior developers more? 

(09:54) The surprising group benefitting from AI 

(11:45) Why is there a productivity gap? 

(13:08) Most companies need a process overhaul 

(14:33) Anthropic's alarming discovery 

(16:45) So, are we moving quickly enough? 

(17:29) The counterintuitive truth about AI productivity 

 

Where to find me:

- Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ - 

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar 

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Junior roles in AI-exposed fields are disappearing fast. 

The obvious culprit is AI rapidly automating entry-level jobs. And yet, this isn't quite right. What is driving the drop is managers? expectations about what AI will do, not the work that it's already replacing. 

I discussed this with Ben Zweig of Revelio Labs, which builds global workforce data from millions of individual profiles to track hiring, separations and job flows. Their data shows how expectation and uncertainty are reshaping the market.

Together, we explored the future of work and shared practical advice for new grads. 

We covered: 

(01:15) What's happening in the labor market? 

(05:27) The inherent complexity of the labor market 

(06:24) How Revelio Labs captures labor market data 

(08:39) "The Canary in the Coal Mine" 

(11:52) Who does AI exposure harm the most? 

(13:01) How AI anticipation is harming the job market 

(15:15) Testing the expectation mismatch hypothesis 

(17:30) Could AI be creating more jobs? 

(20:44) Breaking down jobs into smaller tasks 

(27:33) Why large companies struggle to reorganize 

(30:35) Focus on creating adaptive, flexible roles 

(36:03) Managing AI's increasing capability 

(39:11) What entry-level workers need to do 

Where to find me: 

- Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar 

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Where to find Ben: 

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-zweig/ 

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/BJZweig 

- Revelio Labs: https://www.reveliolabs.com/ 

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The AI boom isn?t just about chatbots.

In this video, I explain why cloud companies and chipmakers are exploding in value: we?re moving into an economy where computation becomes a fundamental input ? like steel, electricity or oil.

If that?s true, our demand for compute could approach infinity.

I also break down new data from Wharton?s 2025 AI Adoption Report, which shows how AI agents and automated workflows are already spreading through major U.S. companies: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/special-report/2025-ai-adoption-report/

Timestamps:

(00:00) The economic shift to computation (00:40) The surprising Cloud business boom (02:52) Is the hardware industry growth a bubble? (03:18) What is computing, really? (04:31) Our insatiable appetite for computing (09:15) Our economic dependence on computation (10:54) The rise of agentic workforces (13:05) What does infinite demand actually mean? (15:23) The future of compute demand

Where to find me:

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I speak with Jordan Schneider, creator of Chinatalk, to explore the new phase of US?China competition. Both countries are using trade policy, export controls and industrial strategy to shift the balance of global power. Yet, their economies remain tightly bound. 

We cover: 

(01:34) The US and China?s decoupling 

(07:28) Why attempts to control China backfired 

(08:51) Understanding the Oct. 9th rare Earth rules 

(11:27) The modern iteration of Chinese communism 

(14:23) Is decoupling a strategy to avoid weaponization? 

(16:12) US leadership might be shooting from the hip 

(19:22) Are system changes inherently messy? 

(21:27) ?Vibe-based? sovereignty 

(26:03) AI incumbents aren?t entrenched?yet 

(29:07) Why China remains focused on AI deployment 

(32:45) The different versions of tech-accelerationism 

(33:37) How will societies withstand rapid change? 

(36:54) What the West can learn from China 

(40:10) Where China is most misunderstood 

(43:14) Imagining an improved US-China relationship 

Where to find Jordan:

Substack: https://substack.com/@chinatalkYouTube: @ChinaTalkMedia?Linkedin: / jorschneiderX: https://x.com/jordanschnyc

Where to find me:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn:/ azharX: https://x.com/azeem

Produced by EPIIPLUS1 Ltd and supermix.io 

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Azeem Azhar sat down with Matthew Prince, co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare. Matthew is a rare operator with the vantage point to answer a simple question: if agents do the reading, who gets paid? 

This conversation is a practical map of how AI ?answer engines? upend the web?s traffic-funded model ? and what could replace it.

Chapters: 

(00:46) The currency of the web is dying (06:08) Google's inflection point (10:08) Why a broken business model might save the internet (14:44) The incentivization of ragebait (20:38) Content scarcity as a solution (24:35) What could a new content business model look like? (28:51) The challenge of pricing information (29:31) How Cloudflare thinks about the creator economy (32:06) Should smaller companies pay less? (34:24) Can markets solve this without Congress? (39:11) How does the agentic web affect content? (43:40) A rare chance to redesign the internet 

Produced by EPIIPLUS1 Ltd and supermix.io 

Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic, Nathan Warren and Marija Gavrilov.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I spoke with Dan Wang, author of ?Breakneck: China?s Quest to Engineer the Future?, shortlisted for the FT & Schroders Business Book of the Year.

Dan is one of the most astute observers of China?s technological and industrial development, and his annual letters from Beijing have long been required reading for those seeking to understand the country?s evolving role in the world.

We unpacked a bold thesis: China is not merely a competitor in AI and tech, but is re-imagining its entire state apparatus as an engineering state - in contrast to the more ?lawyerly? institutions of the US and UK.

If you?re interested in AI, energy or geopolitics, this conversation is for you.

We covered: 

(00:47) Why China is an engineering state

(03:40) China?s pro-engineering disposition

(06:08) The role of market competition in China

(08:07) Living through Zero COVID

(11:35) What political science terms get wrong

(12:58) Characteristics of a lawyerly society

(15:23) What Americans misunderstand about China

(21:54) Has China produced essential tech?

(23:50) The AI divide: China vs. US

(27:45) Differences in energy production

(32:07) The inherent value of process knowledge

(38:34) Is the US developing pro-engineering policies?

(44:23) What does it take for countries to compete?

Where to find me:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Where to find Dan:

Website: https://danwang.co/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danwang15/Twitter/X: https://x.com/danwwang

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd, including Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov, Nathan Warren and Hannah Petrovic.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Is AI a bubble? In this episode, I unpack a new five-gauge framework for understanding the biggest question in tech. 

Drawing on lessons from past manias ? railways, telecoms, the dot-com boom ? and grounding our analysis in fresh data, we examine economic strain, revenue growth, valuations, and the quality of capital fueling AI?s ascent. This is our effort to cut through hype and fatalism to provide a clear dashboard: where today?s AI build-out looks like a genuine boom, and where early warning signs of bubble dynamics may be emerging. 

Whether you?re an investor, policymaker, or executive, this framework offers a disciplined way to navigate the noise.

Jump to the best parts:

(00:29) Echoes of the past (01:31) The 5 gauge framework (01:54) Gauge #1: Investment intensity(03:45) Gauge #2: Monetization level (04:48) Gauge #3: Revenue trajectory (06:23) Gauge #4: Valuation level(07:24) Gauge #5: Quality of capital (10:10) Overall assessment

Produced by EPIIPLUS1 and Supermix. 

Thanks to my team: Nathan Warren, Hannah Petrovic, Chantal Smith & Marija Gavrilov

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

GPT-5 was the most advanced AI when it was released, but most people were disappointed. Why? 

In this episode, I unpack the two key paradoxes that shape how we judge new technology: shifting goalposts and negative space.

Timestamps: 

(0:00) The reaction to GPT-5 

(0:40) First paradox 

(2:55) Second paradox 

(5:29) Why this matters 

Dig deeper: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/the-paradox-of-gpt-5  

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd, including Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov, Nathan Warren and Hannah Petrovic.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Can AI stocks beat Big Tech? In this episode, I discuss OpenAI and its decision to expand a secondary share sale that lets insiders sell about $10.3 billion of stock at roughly a $500 billion valuation. Although skeptical at first, the calculations reveal there is a path for OpenAI to deliver outsized returns.

I cover:

(0:00) The $500B question 

(01:11) Why the Nasdaq Index is the benchmark 

(03:35) Inside the OpenAI-Microsoft deal 

(05:50) The bull case: OpenAI?s trillion-dollar path 

(09:33) The AI market explosion 

(12:39) The bear case: Competition and constraints 

(17:13) Exploring the models of tomorrow 

(20:58) The disruption premium 

(23:21) Where will OpenAI?s revenue come from? 

(29:14) The final verdict

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This is the single most important paper to come out in tech in recent weeks. Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar and Ruyu Chen investigated whether generative AI is leading to job losses in roles most exposed to AI ? and how these effects differ by age and the way AI is used. In this episode, I break down these results and their implications. 

I covered: 

(01:17) Key finding 

(03:32) What?s going on here? 

(06:13) A canary in the coal mine? 

(8:21) The dataset studied and why it matters 

(10:34) The sectors impacted and why it matters 

(12:37) Why don't firms just reduce salaries? 

(14:34) Historical parallels with electricity 

(17:20) How leadership impacts job losses 

(20:46) Implications for policy, education, equity 

(24:53) Outro 

Where to find me: 

- Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar?originalSubdomain=uk 

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

----

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1

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Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, led one of the first major content licensing deals with OpenAI in 2024. In this conversation, he joins Azeem to unpack how AI is transforming media ? and what that means for every business navigating the shifting economics of attention, trust, and discovery. 

We cover: 

(01:49) Journalism?s four horsemen 

(5:33) The collapse of search 

(9:07) Cloudflare?s counterattack 

(13:56) Is this the search-traffic fix? 

(17:42) Rise of the sovereign creator 

(22:57) Do great writers need editors? 

(26:22) Why conservatives win new media 

(27:17) How Substack drives discovery 

(31:08) East Coast vs. West Coast ethics 

(35:11) How Nick uses AI in writing 

(42:13) Is AI friend or foe to journalism? 

(45:32) The Atlantic?s survival plan 

Nick's links: 

The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasxthompson/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/nxthompson 

Substack: https://nxthompson.substack.com 

Azeem's links: 

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

----

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At the start of the year, I made seven predictions about how 2025 would unfold. Six months in, it's time to mark my own work. From AI capability breakthroughs to autonomous vehicles, climate extremes to workforce transformation, I examine what I got right, what I missed, and why the 2027-2028 period will be when vertical AI hits the real economy in force.

In this episode you?ll hear:

The AI wall that never came: Ten-million-token models exist, O3 scores 25% on Frontier Math vs GPT-4's 2%, but some models are inconsistent and overthink problemsWhen bots officially out-talk humans: My modeling shows LLMs crossed the threshold of producing more text than humans sometime this summerThe Waymo vs Uber SF battle: They've beaten Lyft and expanded to New York, but Tesla's Austin robo-taxi fleet changes the competitive landscapeClimate and energy predictions that were "too easy": Record climate extremes, 30% solar growth, and Indonesia's stunning EV jump from 20% to 80% in two yearsWhat I completely missed: The AI capex boom, humanoid robots at Figure/BMW/Amazon, and workforce impact with CEOs reporting 20-50% AI assistanceWhy getting too many predictions right is a problem: I reflect on whether scoring too well means I didn't push boundaries enough in my forecastingThe 2027-2028 turbulence ahead: Why four-year-old AI startups challenging incumbents while early adopters reap deep organizational benefits will create economic turbulence

Our new show

This was originally recorded for ?Friday with Azeem Azhar?, a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through my Substack linked below.

The format is experimental and we?d love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected].

Azeem?s links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar?originalSubdomain=ukTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Timestamps:

(00:00) Grading my predictions from January 2025

(01:23) #1: No AI Wall

(03:59) #2: Warp-speed deployment

(05:16) #3: Bots out-talk humans

(06:24) #4: Waymo overtakes Uber in SF

(08:31) #5: Climate extremes intensify

(09:09) #6: Solar keeps breaking records

(10:06) #7: EVs shift up a gear

(11:12) The problem with predicting too accurately

(12:01) What I missed

(12:14) The CapEx boom around AI

(13:56) The rise of humanoid robots

(14:36) AI's impact on the workforce

(18:40) Looking ahead

(18:48) Infrastructure first, apps next

(19:52) 2027/2028 will be a "period of fireworks"

(21:39) When we'll find out if AI is a bubble

(23:02) A question for the future

Production:

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, I reflect on a whirlwind three-day visit to China - my first in over 20 years. And what I saw was remarkable. The infrastructure puts most of the West to shame. The AI isn't just hype - it's working at serious scale. And the electric vehicles? They're about to steamroll the global auto industry. Here's what really struck me during my whirlwind trip to Beijing and beyond.

In this episode you'll hear:

Infrastructure built at speed: Beijing's immaculate airport, 300 km/h rail to Tianjin for £17, and pristine expressways that put US infrastructure to shame.Verticalised AI in action: While Chinese labs trail US frontier models and face compute constraints, they're excelling in verticals - profitable robotaxis in Wuhan, healthcare AI analyzing 5.5 billion medical records, and Squirrel AI's $200m education platform that outperforms China's best human teachers.EV cost leadership is set: Chinese electric vehicles are absolutely remarkable. Years of vicious domestic competition have created incredible innovation and cost discipline that will hit European carmakers like a sledgehammer.The air quality transformation: Beijing at 37°C was clean enough for a morning run, thanks to widespread EV adoption.Scale that defies comprehension: Convention centers 100 times the size of Union Square, cities of 20 million people, and AI platforms serving tens of millions of users.

Our new show

This was originally recorded for ?Friday with Azeem Azhar?, a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through my Substack linked below.

The format is experimental and we?d love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected].

Azeem?s links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar?originalSubdomain=ukTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Timestamps:

(00:00) Surprises at the airport

(01:21) Immense scale

(01:54) 3 areas of interest

(02:37) Chinese infrastructure and engineering

(03:22) ~180mph train, £17 fare

(04:29) Multi-lane expressways built for scale

(05:55) Development of AI in china

(06:09) China leans into vertical AI

(08:12) Apollo robotaxis: unit-cost positive

(09:33) Yidu Tech: 5.5B health records

(10:35) Squirrel AI outperforms top teachers

(14:29) EVs & clean air

(16:14) BYD x Octopus: earn by charging

(18:30) EV boom improves Beijing air

(19:56) Luxury Chinese EV interior

(21:08) Closing thoughts

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Broadcasting live from Paris, I tackle three massive technology stories that are reshaping our digital future. From Apple's stunning interface redesign to the collapse of traditional search advertising, and Sam Altman's vision of an AI singularity that's already begun - this episode captures the tectonic shifts happening in tech right now.

I cover:

(1:32) WWDC 2025: ?Apple?s AI challenges and new UI

(6:06) The decline of Google?s ad model

(10:08) Sam Altman?s Gentle Singularity essay

(19:37) Live audience Q&A

(19:45) Is the singularity really about Altman?

(22:13) Is France carrying Europe?s AI dreams?

(24:58) Are you seeing promising AI hardware?

(27:42) How will AI change software pricing?

Our new show

This was originally recorded for ?Friday with Azeem Azhar?, a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through my Substack linked below.

The format is experimental and we?d love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected].

Azeem?s links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar?originalSubdomain=ukTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd.

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This week, I'm speaking with Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer at OpenAI, who is steering product development at what might be the world's most important company right now.

We talk about:

(00:00) Episode trailer

(01:37) OpenAI's latest launches

(03:43) What it's like being CPO of OpenAI

(04:34) How AI will reshape our lives

(07:23) How young people use AI differently

(09:29) Addressing fears about AI

(11:47) Kevin's "Oh sh!t" moment

(14:11) Why have so many models within ChatGPT?

(18:19) The unpredictability of AI product progress

(24:47) Understanding model ?evals?

(27:21) How important is prompt engineering?

(29:18) Defining ?AI agent?

(37:00) Why OpenAI views coding as a prime target use-case

(41:24) The "next model test? for any AI startup

(46:06) Jony Ive's role at OpenAI

(47:50) OpenAI's hardware vision

(50:41) Quickfire questions

(52:43) When will we get AGI?

Kevin's links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinweil/

Twitter/X: @kevinweil

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Our new show:

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through Exponential View on Substack.

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Economist and polymath Tyler Cowen challenges Silicon Valley's optimistic projections about AI-driven economic growth. We explore what could slow AI's economic impact, despite its remarkable capabilities ? and where humans find the new normal amidst major shifts.

Timestamps: 

(00:00) Episode trailer 

(01:47) ?The problem with Silicon Valley's AI-driven growth projections 

(06:02) The institutional bottleneck to AI progress 

(10:49) Markets aren?t pricing in a radical AI future 

(12:53) Are we heading for a great job displacement? 

(17:02) Is GDP still worth talking about? 

(19:11) Who does AI benefit most? 

(21:11) Will AI cause a human identity crisis? 

(27:11) The education system?s failure to adapt 

(35:34) How the Gulf could become a geopolitical powerhouse 

(39:10) ?Could AI change religion? 

(46:46) ?Closing thoughts 

Tyler's links: 

Marginal Revolution Blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/ 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/tylercowen 

Azeem's links: 

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Our new show

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through Exponential View on Substack.

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 LTD

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, joins Azeem to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming software development. In this episode you'll hear: 

(01:50) What?s left for developers in the age of AI? (04:54) How GitHub Copilot unlocks flow state (07:09) Three big shifts in how engineers work today (10:47) Is software development art or assembly line? (15:26) Why developers are climbing the abstraction ladder (19:35) Have we already lost control of the code? (23:15) What it?s actually like to work with AI coding agents (39:35) Welcome to the age of ultra-personalized software(45:37) Building the next-generation web 

Thomas's links:

GitHub: https://github.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtom/Twitter/X: https://x.com/ashtom

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Our new show This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through Exponential View on Substack. Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Aaron Levie, CEO & co-founder of Box, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how an ?AI-first? mindset is reshaping every layer of Box ? from product road-maps to pricing ? and what that teaches the rest of us about building faster, smarter organisations.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Episode trailer

(02:04) The "lump of labor fallacy" in sci-fi books

(07:37) When individual productivity gains don?t translate to teams

(12:32) Box?s Friday AI demos

(21:23) How agents might redefine 100 years of management science

(26:37) A lesson on AI innovation from the early days of Ford

(29:52) Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and Sergey Brin are coding again?

(35:16) Pricing in a post-AI agent world

(38:43) Cheaper tokens, heavier usage: AI?s margin math

(43:02) Solving AI?s verifiability problem

(48:24) How Aaron uses AI in his personal life

Aaron's links:

Box: https://www.box.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boxaaron/X/Twitter: https://x.com/levie

Azeem?s links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharX/Twitter: https://x.com/azeem

This conversation was recorded for ?Friday with Azeem Azhar?, live every Friday at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET. Catch it via Exponential View on Substack.

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Lennart Heim, a researcher and information scientist at RAND Corporation, joins Azeem Azhar to unpack a provocative claim: China is catching up with US AI capabilities, but it doesn't matter. 

Timestamps: 

(00:00) Episode trailer 

(01:19) Lennart?s core thesis 

(03:26)???Why compute matters so much 

(07:31) ?The investment split between model R&D and model execution 

(11:18) ?How test-time compute impacts costs 

(16:14) The geopolitics of compute 

(21:32) Why does the U.S have more compute capacity than China? 

(25:01) ?The trade-off between economic needs and national-security needs 

(31:54)? How technology change might shift the battlegrounds 

(35:33) ?Dealing with compute and power concentration 

(48:19) ?Concluding quick-fire question 

 

Lennart's links: 

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ohlennartPersonal blog: https://heim.xyz/

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through Exponential View on Substack. 

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, joins Azeem to discuss the Iberian blackout and how we can create a more stable, flexible, and resilient energy grid for the future. This conversation digs into grid technology, market structures, and the real opportunities of the clean energy transition. 

(00:00) Episode trailer (01:38) ?What caused the Iberian blackout? (04:55) ?Managing load in traditional vs renewable grids (11:57) The role of market incentives (18:13) ?Greg's social experiments within the UK grid (23:49) ?How the "virtual power plant" is becoming a reality (26:59) ?The path to completing the renewable energy transition (33:15) ?Are lobbyists slowing down the transition? (36:26) ?What does the next 5-10 years look like? (40:42) ?Why the name "Octopus?" 

Greg's links:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/g__jLinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/gregsjacksonOctopus Energy: https://octopus.energy/

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Physicist and entrepreneur Steve Hsu, whose startup Superfocus tackles hallucination problems in large language models, joins Azeem to discuss AI agents, hallucination challenges and what happens when technology meets labor markets. 

They discuss: 

(01:31) The deeper shift that Superfocus represents 

(07:00) ?Will models overcome hallucination? 

(10:15) ?AI Agents can replace 80-90% of call center calls

(12:27) ?What it?s like showing customer support AI to customer support people 

(22:36) ?China's mayors are like mini CEOs 

(30:05) ?What will matter most in the supposed "AI race"? 

(35:58) DeepSeek was not part of the Chinese Government 

(38:23) ?How open source will change the future of deployment 

(40:59) ?What the public doesn't understand about AI tail risk 

(48:01) How AI plush toys can teach French to 2-year-olds 

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through Exponential View on Substack. 

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sir Niall Ferguson, renowned historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the evolving relationship between the U.S. and China, Trump's foreign policy doctrine, and what the new global economic and security order might look like. 

(00:00) ?What most analysts are missing about Trump 

(05:43) ?The win-win outcome in Europe?U.S relations 

(11:17) ?How the U.S. is reestablishing deterrence 

(15:50) ?Can the U.S. economy weather the impact of tariffs? 

(23:33) Niall's read on China 

(29:29) ?How is China performing in tech? 

(33:35) ?What might happen with Taiwan 

(42:43) Predictions for the coming world order 

Sir Niall Ferguson's links:

Substack: Time MachineBooks: War of the World, Doom: The Politics of CatastropheTwitter/X: https://x.com/nfergus

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

 Our new show This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar" on 28 March. 

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

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In this episode, Azeem Azhar speaks with Ryan Petersen, CEO and founder of logistics platform Flexport, about the current state of global trade amidst escalating tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and technological disruption. Ryan offers unique insights from the frontlines of the US-China trade war and explores how businesses are adapting to a rapidly changing landscape. 

(00:00) Episode trailer 

(01:12) Ryan's overall thoughts and predictions 

(03:40) Why shipping is crucial to your everyday life 

(08:07) Why tariffs may actually increase global shipping 

(11:34) Who?s pausing their China shipments? 

(14:29) The mindset of Flexport customers right now 

(16:02) Is this the end of globalization? 

(21:48) The fragility and resiliency of global trade 

(25:27) The most underrated story in the world 

(30:25) How tech has changed global trade 

(36:31) Who will win in the new trade settings? 

(41:20) What could a U.S-China trade deal look like? 

Ryan's links:

Flexport https://www.flexport.com/ 

Twitter/X https://x.com/typesfast 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpetersen/

Azeem's links: 

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ 

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar 

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Our new show

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through my Substack linked below. The format is experimental and we'd love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected].

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Azeem Azhar welcomes Packy McCormick, founder and investor at Not Boring, to discuss the current tech landscape. 

In this episode you'll hear: 

(01:50) What Packy got wrong (and right) about Web3 

(10:17) The shift to "know thyself and know thyself-nots" 

(14:28) Europe just woke up 

(18:46) Bits and atoms are cool again 

(21:10) London airport shutdown reveals a deeper challenge 

(23:32) A new kind of home energy infrastructure 

(29:28) A theory on Eric Schmidt's new CEO role 

(34:08) What's the role of nuclear in a solar + battery world? 

(40:33) The coming tech boom 

Our new show This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET. You can tune in through my Substack linked below. The format is experimental and we'd love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected]. 

Packy's links: 

Substack: https://www.notboring.co/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/packyM 

Azeem's links: 

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem 

Produced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Anthropic's co-founder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan discusses AI's rapid evolution, the shorter-than-expected timeline to human-level AI, and how Claude's "thinking time" feature represents a new frontier in AI reasoning capabilities.

In this episode you'll hear:

Why Jared believes human-level AI is now likely to arrive in 2-3 years instead of by 2030How AI models are developing the ability to handle increasingly complex tasks that would take humans hours or daysThe importance of constitutional AI and interpretability research as essential guardrails for increasingly powerful systems

Our new show 

This was originally recorded for "Friday with Azeem Azhar", a new show that takes place every Friday at 9am PT and 12pm ET on Exponential View. You can tune in through my Substack linked below. The format is experimental and we'd love your feedback, so feel free to comment or email your thoughts to our team at [email protected].

Timestamps:

(00:00) Episode trailer

(01:27) Jared's updated prediction for reaching human-level intelligence

(08:12) What will limit scaling laws?

(11:13) How long will we wait between model generations?

(16:27) Why test-time scaling is a big deal

(21:59) There?s no reason why DeepSeek can?t be competitive algorithmically

(25:31) Has Anthropic changed their approach to safety vs speed?

(30:08) Managing the paradoxes of AI progress

(32:21) Can interpretability and monitoring really keep AI safe?

(39:43) Are model incentives misaligned with public interests?

(42:36) How should we prepare for electricity-level impact?

(51:15) What Jared is most excited about in the next 12 months

Jared's links:

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

Azeem's links: 

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azharTwitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Produced by supermix.io

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kevin Kelly is a co-founder of Wired Magazine and a renowned author and futurist.  Decades ago, Kevin predicted much of today's technological and cultural landscape. In this discussion, he presents his new bold vision for what?s coming next: The Handoff to Bots.

In this episode, you?ll hear:

Why declining populations will radically reshape economiesWhat a bot-to-bot economy could look and feel likeWhy people of the future might be paid to read emailsHow AI could help humanity find deeper purposeWhy this future might be closer than you think

Kevin?s links:

Website/blog: https://kk.org/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/kevin2kelly

Instagram: / kevin2kelly  

Azeem's links:

Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/

Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar?ori...

Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:17) The baby black hole behind Kevin's theory

(10:49) Kevin's thesis: The handoff to bots

(15:05) This world is closer than we think

(19:32) The role of humans in this new world

(21:23) Could monopoly influence pose a problem?

(28:33) The nature of ?struggle? in this new world

(32:42) Could we see countries competing for population?

(36:06) How a scarcity of humans might change what we value

(42:30) What would 1994 Kevin think of 2025 Kevin's blog?

 

Production:

Production by supermix.io

 

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Kai-Fu Lee joins me to discuss AI in 2025. Kai-Fu is a storied AI researcher, investor, inventor and entrepreneur based in Taiwan. As one of the leading AI experts based in Asia, I wanted to get his take on this particular market.

Key insights:

Kai-Fu noted that unlike the singular ?ChatGPT moment? that stunned Western audiences, the Chinese market encountered generative AI in a more ?incremental and distributed? fashion.A particularly fascinating shift is how Chinese enterprises are adopting generative AI. Without the entrenched SaaS layers common in the US, Chinese companies are ?rolling their own? solutions. This deep integration might be tougher and messier, but it encourages thorough, domain-specific implementations.We reflected on a structural shift in how we think about productivity software. With AI ?conceptualizing? the document and the user providing strategic nudges, it?s akin to reversing the traditional creative process.We?re moving from a training-centric world to an inference-centric one. Models need to be cheaper, faster and less resource-intensive to run, not just to train. For instance, his team at ZeroOne.ai managed to train a top-tier model on ?just? 2,000 H100 GPUs and bring inference costs down to 10 cents per million tokens?a fraction of GPT-4?s early costs.In 2025, Kai-Fu predicts, we?ll see fewer ?demos? and more ?AI-first? applications deploying text, image and video generation tools into real-world workflows.

Connect with us:

Exponential View

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Nathan Benaich, Founder and General Partner of Air Street Capital, joins me to discuss AI in 2025. From runaway consumer adoption to evolving enterprise moats, from still-elusive AI-driven drug breakthroughs to the renewed vigour in robotics, several core themes stood out.

1. Frontier models & AI at scale

In 2024, we witnessed the astonishing growth of frontier models and their deployment on a massive scale. OpenAI?s GPT-4 and GPT-4 o1, Anthropic?s Claude and Google?s Gemini have all demonstrated that being ?at the frontier? is increasingly the price of admission.

2. Consumers, voice and infinite worlds

On the consumer side, we have reason to believe 2025 will be the year of AI-enabled workflows that feel truly natural. Voice, multimodality and integration into daily routines?like transcribing my morning thoughts during a commute?are becoming routine.

3. Accelerating science & drug discovery

While AI accelerates lab automation and data analysis?improving reproducibility and speeding up processes?the promised ?AI-designed blockbuster drug? is still in the pipeline. Clinical timelines and regulatory hurdles do not compress easily.

4. Geopolitics, funding and the sovereign question

As training costs skyrocket and models require unimaginable scale, questions mount? Who funds these massive compute requirements? Will nation-states view these labs as strategic assets, akin to telecoms or chipmakers?

5. From explosive capability gains to refined utility

We?ve grown numb to what was once astonishing?perfect speech synthesis, infinite text generation, zero-shot coding. The capabilities of models now surpass human levels in many benchmarks. The next major shifts may be subtler, or simply less obviously spectacular.

Connect with us:

Exponential ViewNathan Benaich
 

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Dylan Patel, founder of SemiAnalysis and one of my go-to experts on semiconductors and data center infrastructure joins me to discuss AI in 2025. Several key themes emerged about where AI might be headed in 2025:

1/ Big Tech?s accelerating CapEx and market adjustments
The hyperscalers are racing ahead in capital expenditure, with Microsoft?s annual outlay likely to surpass $80 billion (up from around $15 billion just five years ago). By mid-decade, total annual investments in AI-driven data centers could climb from around $150?200 billion today to $400?500 billion. While these expansions power more advanced models and services, such rapid spending raises questions for investors. Are shareholders ready for ongoing, multi-fold increases in data center build-outs?

2/ The competitive landscape and new infrastructure players
The expected explosion in AI workloads is drawing in a wave of new specialized GPU cloud providers?names like CoreWeave, Niveus, Crusoe?each gunning to become the next vital utility layer of AI compute. Unlike the hyperscalers, these players tap different pools of capital, including real-estate-like finance and private credit, enabling them to ramp up aggressively. This dynamic threatens the established order and could squeeze margins as competition heats up. The market is starting to understand that.

3/ The semiconductor supply chain isn?t the only bottleneck
We often talk about GPU shortages, but the real sticking point is broader infrastructural complexity. Yes, Nvidia and TSMC can ramp up chip supply. But even if you have enough high-end silicon, you still need power infrastructure and grid connectivity. Building multi-gigawatt data centers in the US?each the size of a utility-scale power plant?is now firmly on the agenda. In some states, data centers already consume 30% of the grid?s electricity. By 2027, AI data centers alone could account for 10% or more of total US electricity consumption, straining America?s aging infrastructure.

4/ Commoditization of models and margin pressure
A year ago, advanced language models were scarce and expensive. Today, open-source variants like Llama 3.1 are driving commoditization at speed, slicing away the profit margins of plain-vanilla model-serving. If your model doesn?t outperform the best open source, you?re forced to compete on price?and that?s a race to the bottom. Currently, only a handful of players (OpenAI and Anthropic among them) enjoy meaningful margins. As models proliferate, value will increasingly flow to those offering distinctive tools, integrating closely into enterprise workflows and locking in switching costs.

5/ Into 2025: exponential curves and new market norms
Despite these challenges?soaring costs, stalled infrastructure build-outs, margin erosion?Dylan is confident that exponential scaling will continue. The sector?s appetite for GPUs, specialized chips and next-gen data centers appears insatiable. We could easily see record-breaking fundraising rounds north of $10 billion for private AI ventures?funded by sovereign wealth funds and other capital pools that have barely scratched the surface of their capacity to invest in AI infrastructure. There?s also a very tangible productivity angle. AI coding assistants continue to reduce the cost of software development. Some software companies could be looking at 20?30% staff reductions in these technical teams as high-level coding becomes automated. This shift, still in its early days, will have profound downstream effects on the entire software ecosystem.

Find us:

Exponential ViewSemiAnalysis

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As we race towards a future powered by AI and data centres, how will the insatiable demand for energy impact the environment? With the richest companies ploughing billions into energy generation, might there be some unexpected upsides for the climate transition? And can exponential technologies address the climate crisis on a finite planet? 

Cleaning Up host Michael Liebreich sits down with Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, to explore the complex relationship between exponential growth, climate change, and the societal implications of transformative technologies. Michael and Azeem delve into the promises and pitfalls of a future shaped by the rapid advancements in renewable energy, battery storage, and artificial intelligence. 

This podcast was originally published on Cleaning Up. 

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

This week, Azeem speaks with Richard Socher, CEO and founder of You.com, an AI chatbot search engine at the forefront of truthful and verifiable AI. They explore approaches to building AI systems that are both truthful and verifiable. The conversation sheds light on the critical breakthroughs in AI, the technical challenges of ensuring AI?s reliability, and Socher?s vision for the future of search.

They also discuss:

How AI?s future is tied to advancements in natural language processing. The role of scientific rigor in large language models? current and future developments. The founding of You.com and its mission to revolutionize search. Predictions for the next big breakthroughs in AI.

@azeem
@RichardSocher

Further resources:

Why AI is humanity?s mirror ? and what we can learn from it (Richard Socher, TED, 2023) The Promise of AI with Fei-Fei Li (Azeem Azhar, Exponential View, 2020) AI is the real web3 (Azeem Azhar, Exponential View, 2023)

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As 2024 begins, leaders are facing increasing uncertainty and a host of difficult decisions. Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity amid a complicated information landscape, with his analysis of 12 core themes that will shape the year ahead, including AI adoption, geopolitics, decentralization, the energy transition, and more.

The discussion specifically touches on:

What will drive widespread corporate adoption of AI. How to think about the emergence of new business models around AI. What you need to know about the new wave of decentralization technologies. How leaders should think about an electrified world of stable and declining power prices.

@azeem

Further resources:

The Horizon for 2024: The Biggest Questions on the Horizon (Azeem Azhar, 2024) Notes from a Ski Resort, 2024 Edition (Azeem Azhar, 2024)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

Generative AI has a lot to offer health care professionals and medical scientists. This week, Azeem speaks with renowned cardiologist, scientist, and author Eric Topol about the change he?s observed among his colleagues in the last two years, as generative AI developments have accelerated in medicine.

They discuss:

The challenges and benefits of AI in health care. The pros and cons of different open-source and closed-source models for health care use. The medical technology that has been even more transformative than AI in the past year.

@azeem
@erictopol

Further resources:

When AI Meets Medicine (Exponential View Podcast, 2019) Can AI Catch What Doctors Miss? (Eric Topol, TED, 2023)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

This week, Azeem joins Sasha Luccioni, an AI researcher and climate lead at Hugging Face, to shed light on the environmental footprint and other immediate impacts of AI, and how they compare to more long-term challenges.

They cover:

The energy consumption and carbon impact of AI models ? and how researchers have gone about measuring it. The tangible economic and social impacts of AI, and how focusing on existential risks now hurt our chances of addressing the immediate risks of AI deployment. How regulation and governance could evolve to address the most pressing questions of the industry.

@azeem
@SashaMTL

Further resources:

Power Hungry Processing: Watt?s Driving the Cost of AI Deployment (Alexandra Sasha Luccioni et al, 2023) The Open-Source Future of Artificial Intelligence (Exponential View, 2023) AI is Dangerous, But Not For the Reasons You Think (TED, Sasha Luccioni, 2023)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

This week, Azeem joins Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of autonomous driving start-up Wayve, to uncover how the AI revolution is enabling new strides in self-driving. They delve into the implications of these advancements for urban mobility and the transformation of cities in the future.

They discuss:

How business models in the automotive industry are shifting towards AI integration and subscription-based services. The role ?embodied AI? is playing in shaping everyday assistance, beyond just digital interactions, in the future. The challenges and breakthroughs of applying AI in complex, unpredictable environments, like road traffic.

@azeem
@alexgkendall

Further resources:

Ride the Wayve: Azeem Azhar Goes for an Autonomous Drive on London?s Toughest Roads (Wayve, 2023) UK Start-up Wayve Unveils Self-Driving System that Explains Its Actions (Financial Times, 2023)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

Organizations across the world have been grappling with the opportunities and challenges of generative AI. This week, Azeem joins AI pioneer and entrepreneur Andrew Ng to discuss the intricacies of this moment and debate whether we?re at an inflection point in the AI revolution.

They consider:

What have organizations learned about AI, and what common mistakes have they made implementing it? What does it mean to be at an inflection point in the AI revolution? How can regulation support the development of AI?

@azeem
@AndrewYNg

Further resources:

Andrew Ng: How to Be an Innovator (MIT Technology Review, 2023) An Update on the Latest Research on Generative AI and Work (Exponential View, 2023) Creating an AI-First Business, with Andrew Ng (Exponential View Podcast, 2019)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? In new episodes released throughout December and January, Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

This week, Azeem speaks with Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity.ai, about the looming challenges in AI research and product development, such as user-centric design and the importance of open-source models.

They discuss:

AI as a tool for democratizing information access. The ?innovator?s dilemma? for Google Search. Whether or not conversational interfaces will become the norm for how we interact with AI. The array of interests shaping the AI regulation debate.

@azeem
@AravSrinivas

Further resources:

How Perplexity.ai Is Pioneering The Future Of Search (Forbes, 2023) AI?s First Flight: An Early Milestone in Generalised Intelligence? (Exponential View, 2023)

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Artificial Intelligence is on every business leader?s agenda. How do we make sense of the fast-moving new developments in AI over the past year? Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity to leaders who face a complicated information landscape.

In new episodes released throughout December and January, Azeem and other AI experts will address questions like: What really matters when it comes to AI? How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? How can we find the signal amidst so much noise?

The upheaval at OpenAI sent shockwaves through the tech world. Karen Hao, a contributing writer who covers AI at The Atlantic, joins Azeem Azhar to break down the ideologies and power struggles within OpenAI and their implications for the development of artificial intelligence. She also explains how these internal conflicts reflect broader challenges in AI development and governance.

They discuss:

The ideological schism within OpenAI and the deep-rooted divides that have influenced the organization?s approach to AI safety and development. How OpenAI?s mission and its execution reflect broader power dynamics in the tech industry. The potential impact of this event on the future of AI and regulatory considerations.

@azeem
@_karenhao

Further resources:

Inside the Chaos at OpenAI (The Atlantic, 2023) Sam Altman and the Board of Secrets (Exponential View, 2023)

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader?s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise.

Today?s pick is Azeem?s 2020 conversation with the pioneering AI scientist Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science at Stanford University and the founding co-director of Stanford?s Human-Centered AI Institute.

They discuss:

How Fei-Fei Li?s work on computer vision led to the transformation of AI development. Why we should rethink human and machine value systems. How the road to artificial general intelligence (AGI) could help us learn more about human cognition.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader?s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise.

Today?s pick is Azeem?s 2021 conversation with veteran AI scientist Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London and principal scientist at DeepMind.

They discuss:

Why some aspects of AI progress depend on embodied interaction. Understanding from where the major breakthroughs in the field may come. Why the salary inflation for commercial AI engineers might hinder research.

Further resources:

Role Play with Large Language Models (Murray Shanahan et al., 2023) Demis Hassabis on DeepMind?s Journey from Games to Fundamental Science (Exponential View, 2019)

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader?s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise.

Today?s pick is Azeem?s conversation with Joanna Bryson, a leading expert on the questions of AI governance and the impact of technology on human cooperation.

They discuss:

The concept of intelligence and AI as a ?cognitive prosthetic.? The scale of development and the benefits of developing AI. The problem of explainability in AI systems.

Further resources:

A Very Short Primer on AI & IP, including Copyright (Joanna Bryson Blog, 2023) Inside the Loop: AI May Launch a Race No-one Can Afford to Lose (Azeem Azhar, 2023)

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