Mary Meeker Pivots to AI with Landmark Trends Report

When I shifted The Big Shift to a weekly cadence, I expected there would be moments that warranted an extra edition here and there. Today is one of those days.

Mary Meeker, whose annual "Internet Trends" reports were once a highly anticipated and indispensable guide for tech executives, investors, and analysts, paused her widely followed updates in 2019. Her return this past week with the "Trends – Artificial Intelligence" report marks a significant pivot, signaling that AI is now central to business strategy, surpassing even the seismic shifts brought about by the internet itself.

Given the multi-hundred-page scale and depth of Meeker’s report, we took the weekend to digest the findings and are still processing its full implications. However, we're ready to share some initial, crucial insights tailored for our Big Shift readership. Having briefly gotten to know Ms. Meeker in the early 2010s, I can attest that her reports offer real substance, meticulously researched over the course of a year by a top team of analysts under her leadership.

Let’s dig in. 👇

Meeker’s Reentry

Mary Meeker’s annual "Internet Trends" reports were renowned for their insightful, data-packed analyses, guiding companies in strategic decision-making and pinpointing trends that became tomorrow’s realities. Her hiatus left a notable gap in tech forecasting. Now, Meeker has reemerged, but this time, AI is her sole focus, reflecting a shift in global priorities and an urgency she sees in preparing business leaders for a radically transforming landscape.

Unprecedented Pace and Scale

The report emphasizes that AI’s adoption is progressing faster than any technology before it, including the internet. Meeker points out that ChatGPT took just 17 months to reach 800 million weekly active users, a speed far outpacing Google's early growth. Moreover, 90% of these users were outside North America by its third year, highlighting a globally simultaneous adoption unlike any previous technology wave.

By the Numbers

• 800M: Weekly active ChatGPT users by April 2025, reached in only 17 months.

• 365B: Annual searches by ChatGPT in 2024; Google took 11 years to achieve this scale.

• 90%: ChatGPT users outside North America by its third year, a milestone the internet took 23 years to achieve.

The Economics of AI

Investment in AI has surged dramatically, driven by the technology's transformative potential. Large tech companies have ramped up capital expenditure substantially, while the cost of using AI has plummeted. However, training cutting-edge AI models remains capital-intensive, creating economic dynamics that businesses must carefully navigate.

By the Numbers

• 63%: Year-over-year increase in CapEx for Big Six tech companies, reaching $212 billion in 2024.

• 99.7%: Drop in AI inference cost per million tokens over two years (Nov 2022–Dec 2024).

• $5B: OpenAI’s compute expenses in 2024, exceeding its estimated revenue.

AI’s Impact on Work

As we’re prone to obsess on in this newsletter, AI is reshaping the workplace from the ground up. The report highlights a decisive shift in how work is defined, distributed, and evaluated. Meeker notes that AI is no longer an IT or R&D consideration; it is becoming foundational to roles across functions, from marketing and customer support to product development and operations.

The early narrative around replacement is giving way to a more urgent focus on augmentation. AI tools are being embedded into daily workflows, supporting everything from task automation to real-time strategic decision-making. This requires a recalibration of expectations around productivity, accountability, and team structure. The skill set that matters most now is the ability to work effectively with AI, interpreting its output, shaping its input, and building on its insights.

By the Numbers

• 448%: Increase in USA AI job postings from January 2018 to April 2025.

• 72%: Employed adults in the USA using AI chatbots reporting improved speed and work quality.

• >50%: S&P 500 companies that mentioned AI in Q4 2024 earnings calls.

Leadership Insight

As a leader, your greatest risk right now is inaction. Regardless of your feelings about the broader implications of AI on society, jobs, or the future of humanity, the simple fact is this: as a business leader, you must move. You must embrace AI. You must be strategic. AI is already influencing business operations, markets, and competitive dynamics, and it is moving faster than any of us can comprehend. Ignoring it, dismissing it, or waiting it out on the sidelines is no longer a defensible position. The mandate is clear: integrate AI into how your organization works, build fluency across your teams, and start making decisions that reflect where the world is headed, not where it has been.

Bottom Line: Backed by a mountain of data, decades on the frontlines of the tech industry, and extensive insider access, Meeker makes an undeniable case: AI is the defining technology of our era, and business leaders must act decisively now to shape their organizations' futures.

Source
Mary Meeker and Bond: Trends - Artificial Intelligence

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