u/Black-Rhino-1564

Took a month, but built a funnel tube marketing agent that uses ai and responds via text and creates an AI warm up conversation using a model and language to that project and “tube”. We don’t allow anyone to just sign up pay and use due to all the TCPA implications, but we’ve onboarded several clients in several verticals and working great for them.

Built in Claude code in the Replit shell. Still hosted in their managed DB. Used EZ text but will move to Twilio, just have to figure out their logistics of how to handle “agency” type account ownership with TCPA rules.

https://thetube.app

The AI industry has burned through ~$3.5 TRILLION since 2013. Here's what it would take to actually turn a profit.

I went down a rabbit hole on AI investment vs. revenue numbers and the math is… sobering.

**The money in:**

- $1.6T in cumulative corporate AI investment from 2013-2024 (Stanford AI Index)

- $259B in AI venture capital in 2025 alone — 61% of ALL global VC that year

- Big Tech capex hit $427B in 2025, projected $562B in 2026

- OpenAI alone raised $122B in a single funding round at an $852B valuation

**The money out:**

- Global AI market revenue: ~$298B in 2026

- OpenAI: $20B+ annualized revenue but burning $8B/year in cash

- Anthropic: $19B annualized but still unprofitable

- 95% of companies deploying AI report ZERO P&L impact (MIT study)

**The break-even number:**

To recoup sunk costs over 10 years + cover ongoing compute/energy/R&D (~$600-800B/year), the entire AI industry would need roughly **$1-1.5 trillion in annual revenue.** That's 3-5x current levels.

**The uncomfortable part:**

A huge chunk of "AI revenue" is circular — Nvidia invests in OpenAI, OpenAI buys Nvidia GPUs, Nvidia reports record revenue. The actual end-user value being generated is a fraction of what the headline numbers suggest.

Goldman Sachs projects $1.3-1.8T in direct AI revenue by 2030. If that hits, the math works out. If it doesn't, this makes the dot-com bubble look like a rounding error.

Either we're in 1998 internet territory (pain now, transformation later) or we're watching the most expensive bonfire in human history.

Thoughts?