Honest Thoughts From a Vendor-free AI Analyst

There’s a lot going on in AI. Sending you a handful of curated news articles helps, but right now I can only tell you so much through them. Every time I click ‘Send,’ I feel like I’m missing out on so many things I’d like to tell you.

So, today, I’m going to try and summarize how I feel about the AI industry today.

We’ll cover:

what I describe as ‘JIT agents’, my new favorite AI use case,

the idea of ‘marketing for agents’ I believe will move a lot of money as a key marketing primitive moving forward,

the new delusions of grandeur of some AI pundits.

Behind the paywall, we’ll cover my honest thoughts about ‘AInomics,’ and the key stuff to know about the real state of the model frontier, with one model in particular that you should definitely know about.

There’s lots to cover and learn today, so let’s dive in.

Agents are now useful, but most people don’t know it yet

The reality is that, although I’m very skeptical about many things in this space, one of them is not agents, at least not when used well. However, that’s not the feeling most people have outside the SF/Twitter AI bubble.

I’ve seen the light, but most haven’t

My concerns about whether AI has real demand, which are very real and are addressed here, are real, but that’s certainly not because I don’t use the technology.

The problem is that, for some reason, most of society doesnt’ feel the same way as I do; I find using them for almost anything these days, when the vast majority of people, including well-educated persons in my surroundings, really struggle to find reasons to even pay $20/month, as they don’t see the value in something I would happily pay $400/month for.

What most people in San Francisco fail to realize is that this perception gap is real, and neither they nor I represent the opinion of the vast majority.

And while I’ve argued multiple times that adopting AI models is a ‘muscle’ that has to be trained, meaning the more you use them, the more reasons you find to use them, the harsh reality is that studies show that the average person gives almost zero value (median of around $11) to these products. We’ll circle back to this topic later in more detail because it’s particularly important to tackle the recent ruse the industry is throwing at us.

Either way, I’m a hardcore AI user who feels AIs create a disproportionate advantage (especially when most society fails to see the value). Thus, my ‘job’ here is to convince you by showing how AI has improved my life lately in and out of work.

Agents ready the ‘now’, not for repetition

In my work use cases, most are obvious: my job is to deeply understand hard topics and distill that knowledge for readers and clients alike, so LLMs are an incredibly natural fit for me. They help me test ideas, clarify…

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