The ugly economics of consumer AI

Consumer AI may be improving rapidly, but the article argues its economics remain unfavorable: consumer willingness to pay is growing slowly, while the cost of running frontier AI stays high. For CIOs and technology leaders, the strategic takeaway is that sustainable AI value is more likely to come from enterprise use cases, vertical solutions, and monetization models tied to business outcomes rather than mass-market subscriptions; IT organizations should prioritize AI initiatives with clear ROI, controllable unit economics, and paths to workflow integration.