We studied how mega consumer-based AI startups are launching into the markets; we identified three paths, and drawing on them to answer the learner:
- Partner with a company with a large user base. OpenAI’s ChatGPT partnered with Microsoft which has millions of users. Microsoft is providing the feedstuff (yes, the data) to advance ChatGPT at scale.
- Spend a huge amount of money via promos and advertisements to get data which will improve your AI models as quickly as possible. This is the Temu path; Temu uses AI to power shopping in its ecosystem. It spent $5 million for a 30-second advert during America’s Superbowl game. Without the data, it has no mission.
- Bake AI into existing in-house data. If you are lucky, and you have the data as Google does, you can launch your Bard equivalent once your code is ready.
And note this: any consumer AI pitch deck that does not address how that data acquisition will be done is not complete! Indeed, without the data, your mission has limited value. In the consumer AI age, controlling or influencing demand is even more important than providing supply if the goal is to generate alpha!
From Hamlet’s “Words, words, words” to ChatGPT’s “data, data, data”, you can see why we have moved well past Shakespeare’s era.
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