Who Will Profit Most From AI: A Contrarian Analysis

The AI profit landscape is evolving through distinct phases that will create wildly different winners over the next decade. Here's how the value distribution will likely play out:

The Three Profit Waves

1?? LLM Builders (2023-2027) Currently capturing massive value through first-mover advantage and technical moats. However, their position faces inevitable commoditization as:

• Open-source models reach parity with closed systems
• Inference costs drop 60-70% annually
• Cloud providers integrate AI capabilities as standard offerings

2?? Solo Builders/Integrators (2025-2032) Will experience the most distributed and accessible profit wave:

• Domain expertise + AI deployment skills = unprecedented leverage
• "Small team, big impact" paradigm creates thousands of niche AI applications
• Value shifts from building models to integrating models into specialized workflows
• One-person businesses can operate at scale previously requiring 30-50 employees

3?? AGI Holders (2030+) Will capture the ultimate long-term value concentration:

• Benefits from winner-take-most dynamics
• Creates unprecedented margin structures
• Accumulates data and compute advantages that become self-reinforcing

The Contrarian Take

The most overlooked profit opportunity is the middle wave - solo builders and integrators who:

1. Don't need to compete with the billions being spent on foundation models
2. Can create 7-8 figure businesses by applying AI to specific domains
3. Benefit from the tools getting better without having to build them

The next 5-7 years represent a golden age for solo builders who combine:

• Deep domain expertise in any field
• Basic AI orchestration skills
• Customer access in underserved markets

These entrepreneurs will achieve unprecedented capital efficiency, with profit-per-employee metrics that break historical models.

The window for this opportunity is temporary - as AGI capabilities emerge, the profit distribution will once again consolidate. But in this middle phase, we'll see more widely distributed AI profits than at any other time in the technology's development.

What domain expertise could you combine with AI integration skills to position yourself for this middle profit wave?