AI is crossing a major threshold in 2025–26:
it’s moving off screens, into workflows, devices, businesses, and even solo empires.
This isn’t hype anymore. The platform war, capital flow, and execution gap are now visible.

1. AI Is Leaving the Screen

The next platform shift is already underway.

• Google plans AI-powered glasses (2026) with Gemini built in, offering real-time translation, navigation, and audio assistance.

• Backed by a $150M investment in Warby Parker and partnerships with Samsung and Gentle Monster.

• This is a direct challenge to Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses, currently leading the wearables race.

• The real shift is contextual, always-on AI that lives in your field of view, not your phone.

Insight: Smartphones were transitional.
AI wearables mark the beginning of the next platform war.

2. AI Spend Proves This Is Not a Bubble

Enterprise budgets tell the real story.

• AI spending jumped from $1.7B (2023) → $11.5B (2024) → $37B (2025).

• Spending is split almost evenly between:

  • AI applications (copilots, workflow tools, coding assistants)

  • Infrastructure (models, APIs, orchestration, training)

• 76% of companies now buy AI instead of building it

• 47% of AI deals reach production, far higher than traditional SaaS.

• Coding tools and departmental AI dominate spending.

Insight: AI has become a default enterprise purchase, not an experiment.

3. ChatGPT Is Becoming the New Work Interface

Adobe just made a strategic move.

• Acrobat + ChatGPT: PDFs can now be created, edited, merged, and analyzed directly in chat.

• Adobe Express + ChatGPT: Voice-driven, conversational design inside the chat window.

• The bet: users no longer switch tools. Tools come to the conversation.

Insight: ChatGPT isn’t replacing creative software.
It’s becoming the interface to it.

4. AI Hardware Is Now a Geopolitical Business

Nvidia and China are back in focus.

• Reports suggest the US may allow limited H200 chip exports to approved Chinese customers.

• This would materially affect Nvidia’s revenue and global AI investment plans.

• Policy risk is now permanent for AI hardware companies.

Insight: In AI, geopolitics isn’t background noise.
It’s part of the business model.

5. Why Most Enterprise AI Still Fails

MIT’s 2025 study reveals a hard truth:

95% of enterprise AI initiatives fail to deliver measurable business impact.

Key reasons:

• AI driven by IT, not CEOs

• No clear ROI-focused use case

• Poor integration with legacy systems

• Weak governance and security

• Lack of in-house AI capability

• Overreliance on rented cloud APIs

• No real agentic or autonomous workflows

Insight: The AI gap is no longer technical.
It’s a leadership failure.

6. The Rise of the One-Person AI Empire

AI is collapsing the cost of building companies.

• Solo founders now ship in weeks what teams took months to build.

• AI has reduced execution costs by ~1,000×.

• The winning formula:

  • Deep domain expertise

  • Real craft and taste

  • Direct access to customers

• Build a DREAM system: Demand, Revenue, Engine, Admin, Marketing — with AI running the boring parts.

Insight: The first one-person billion-dollar company will be built with AI leverage, not hustle.

7. Leadership, Not Tech, Is the Bottleneck

Nearly 80% of enterprises use AI, but less than 10% scale it meaningfully.

• Winners focus on outcomes, not tools:

  • AI agents

  • Autonomous operations

  • Predictive maintenance

  • Fraud detection

• CEOs who treat AI as a leadership system, not an IT project, unlock real ROI.

Final Takeaway:
AI is already running parts of the global economy.
The winners aren’t experimenting. They’re executing.