“I'm skeptical about AI "materially chang[ing] the output of companies", at least in 2025.”

Ben ThompsonReporter / Media

Founder and author of Stratechery

Thompson's skepticism about Altman's "materially change the output of companies" claim largely held up: MIT's 2025 GenAI Divide report found ~95% of enterprise GenAI pilots produced no measurable P&L impact, McKinsey's 2025 state-of-AI survey found enterprise-wide EBIT impact still rare, and Altman himself later conceded he had overestimated the speed of disruption. Real gains did appear in narrower domains, especially software engineering, consistent with Thompson's "uneven arrival" framing.