AI 2027 is not a median forecast but a modal forecast, so a plausible story for the faster side of the capability progression expected by the team. If you condition on the capability progression in the scenario, I actually think $140B in 2027 is potentially on the conservative side. My favourite parts of the FutureSearch report is the examples from the ~$100B/year reference class, e.g., ‘Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Process segment.’ If you take the AI’s agentic capabilities and reliability from the scenario seriously, I think it feels intuitively easy to imagine how a similar scale business booms relatively quickly, and i’m glad that FutureSearch was able to give a breakdown as an example of how that could look.
So maybe I should just ask whether you are conditioning on the capabilities progression or not with this disagreement? Do you think $140b in 2027 is implausible even if you condition on the AI 2027 capability progression?
If you just think $140B in 2027 is not a good unconditional median forecast all things considered, then I think we all agree!
Note: “AI 2027” chooses to call the leading lab “OpenBrain”, but FutureSearch is explicit that they’re talking about OpenAI.
We aren’t forecasting OpenAI revenue but OpenBrain revenue which is different because its ~MAX(OpenAI, Anthropic, GDM (AI-only), xAI, etc.).[1] In some places FutureSearch indeed seems to have given the ‘plausible $100B ARR breakdown’ under the assumption that OpenAI is the leading company in 2027, but that doesn’t mean the two are supposed to be equal neither in their own revenue forecast nor in any of the AI 2027 work.
FutureSearch’s estimate of paid subscribers for April 2025 was 27 million; the actual figure is 20 million. They justify high expected consumer growth with reference to the month-on-month increase in unpaid users from December 2024 → February 2025. Data from Semrush replicates that increase, but also shows that traffic has since declined rather than continuing to increase.
The exact breakdown FutureSearch use seems relatively unimportant compared to the high level argument that the headline (1) $/month and (2) no. of subscribers, very plausibly reaches the $100B ARR range, given the expected quality of agents that they will be able to offer.
Looking at market size estimates, FutureSearch seems to implicitly assume that OpenAI will achieve a near-monopoly on Agents, the same way they have for Consumer subscriptions. Enterprise sales are significantly different from consumer signups, and OpenAI doesn’t currently have a significant technical advantage.
I don’t think a monopoly is necessary, there’s a significant OpenBrain lead-time in the scenario, and I think it seems plausible that OpenBrain would convert that into a significant market share.
Not exactly equal since maybe the leading company in AI capabilities (measured by AI R&D prog. multiplier), i.e., OpenBrain, is not the one making the most revenue.
So maybe I should just ask whether you are conditioning on the capabilities progression or not with this disagreement? Do you think $140b in 2027 is implausible even if you condition on the AI 2027 capability progression?
I am conditioning on the capabilities progression.
Based on your later comments, I think you are expecting a much faster/stronger/more direct translation of capabilities into revenue than I am- such that conditioning on faster progress makes more of a difference.
The exact breakdown FutureSearch use seems relatively unimportant compared to the high level argument that the headline (1) $/month and (2) no. of subscribers, very plausibly reaches the $100B ARR range, given the expected quality of agents that they will be able to offer.
Sure, I disagree with that too. I recognize that most of the growth comes from the Agents category rather than the Consumer category, but overstating growth in the only period we can evaluate is evidence that the model or intuition will also overstate growth of other types in other periods.
I don’t think a monopoly is necessary, there’s a significant OpenBrain lead-time in the scenario, and I think it seems plausible that OpenBrain would convert that into a significant market share.
OpenBrain doesn’t actually have a significant lead time by the standards of the “normal” economy. The assumed lead time is “3-9 months”; both from my very limited personal experience (involved very tangentially in 2 such sales attempts) and from checking online, enterprise sales in the 6+ digits range often take longer than that to close anyways.
I’m suspicious that both you and FutureSearch are trying to apply intuitions from free-to-use consumer-focused software companies to massive enterprise SAAS sales. (FutureSearch compares OpenAI with Google, Facebook, and TikTok.) Beyond the length of sales cycles, another difference is that enterprise software is infamously low quality; there are various purported causes, but relevant ones include various principal-agent problems: the people making decisions have trouble evaluating software, won’t necessarily be directly using it themselves, and care more about things aside from technical quality: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”.
Thanks for the detailed comments! We really appreciate it. Regarding revenue, here’s some thoughts:
AI 2027 is not a median forecast but a modal forecast, so a plausible story for the faster side of the capability progression expected by the team. If you condition on the capability progression in the scenario, I actually think $140B in 2027 is potentially on the conservative side. My favourite parts of the FutureSearch report is the examples from the ~$100B/year reference class, e.g., ‘Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Process segment.’ If you take the AI’s agentic capabilities and reliability from the scenario seriously, I think it feels intuitively easy to imagine how a similar scale business booms relatively quickly, and i’m glad that FutureSearch was able to give a breakdown as an example of how that could look.
So maybe I should just ask whether you are conditioning on the capabilities progression or not with this disagreement? Do you think $140b in 2027 is implausible even if you condition on the AI 2027 capability progression?
If you just think $140B in 2027 is not a good unconditional median forecast all things considered, then I think we all agree!
We aren’t forecasting OpenAI revenue but OpenBrain revenue which is different because its ~MAX(OpenAI, Anthropic, GDM (AI-only), xAI, etc.).[1] In some places FutureSearch indeed seems to have given the ‘plausible $100B ARR breakdown’ under the assumption that OpenAI is the leading company in 2027, but that doesn’t mean the two are supposed to be equal neither in their own revenue forecast nor in any of the AI 2027 work.
The exact breakdown FutureSearch use seems relatively unimportant compared to the high level argument that the headline (1) $/month and (2) no. of subscribers, very plausibly reaches the $100B ARR range, given the expected quality of agents that they will be able to offer.
I don’t think a monopoly is necessary, there’s a significant OpenBrain lead-time in the scenario, and I think it seems plausible that OpenBrain would convert that into a significant market share.
Not exactly equal since maybe the leading company in AI capabilities (measured by AI R&D prog. multiplier), i.e., OpenBrain, is not the one making the most revenue.
Thanks for the response!
I am conditioning on the capabilities progression.
Based on your later comments, I think you are expecting a much faster/stronger/more direct translation of capabilities into revenue than I am- such that conditioning on faster progress makes more of a difference.
Sure, I disagree with that too. I recognize that most of the growth comes from the Agents category rather than the Consumer category, but overstating growth in the only period we can evaluate is evidence that the model or intuition will also overstate growth of other types in other periods.
OpenBrain doesn’t actually have a significant lead time by the standards of the “normal” economy. The assumed lead time is “3-9 months”; both from my very limited personal experience (involved very tangentially in 2 such sales attempts) and from checking online, enterprise sales in the 6+ digits range often take longer than that to close anyways.
I’m suspicious that both you and FutureSearch are trying to apply intuitions from free-to-use consumer-focused software companies to massive enterprise SAAS sales. (FutureSearch compares OpenAI with Google, Facebook, and TikTok.) Beyond the length of sales cycles, another difference is that enterprise software is infamously low quality; there are various purported causes, but relevant ones include various principal-agent problems: the people making decisions have trouble evaluating software, won’t necessarily be directly using it themselves, and care more about things aside from technical quality: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”.