🧠 The Age of Acceleration – Where is AI Taking Us?

#63: AI’s Exponential Growth: What Strategy Leaders Need to Know in 2025

Artificial intelligence is evolving faster than any previous technology — and reshaping everything from strategy to geopolitics. In this article, we explore the key AI trends from the 2025 BOND Report: explosive adoption rates, rising CapEx, open-source competition, and cross-sector deployment.

AI is no longer just an emerging tool. It’s a global system, moving faster than governance and more broadly than any tech before it.

📌 TL;DR: What You’ll Learn

• The 7 most important AI trends from the 2025 BOND Report

• How Big Tech’s CapEx is driving the AI arms race

• What rising AI adoption means across sectors and regions

• How open-source and geopolitics are reshaping the AI landscape

📣 Big Strategic Questions About AI's Future

• Is AI the most disruptive force since the Internet?

• Can humanity keep pace with the compounding speed of AI innovation?

• Will global competition in AI push us forward—or tear us apart?

🔍 Top AI Trends from the 2025 BOND Report

1. AI Adoption Is Exploding

• ChatGPT users: From 6M in 2022 to 800M weekly active users by April 2025.

• AI reached 365B annual searches in just two years—5.5x faster than Google.

2. CapEx Surge from Big Tech

• The “Big Six” (Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta) now spend over $212B annually on capital expenditures—a 63% increase from 2014.

3. Compute Costs Rise, Inference Costs Fall

• Training models is getting more expensive, but per-token inference costs are falling, making AI tools more accessible and usable.

4. Open-Source & Geopolitics as Wildcards

• China is rapidly closing the AI gap—both in enterprise use and LLM development.

• Open-source models like Meta’s Llama 3 and Alibaba’s Qwen series are democratizing access but also challenging monetization models.

5. AI Integration Across Sectors

• AI is now used across industries—from healthcare to finance to fast food:

6. Knowledge is Being Repackaged

• From Gutenberg to Google to Generative AI, information is now created, summarized, and delivered by machines.

7. Developer Base is Booming

• NVIDIA: From <1M to 6M developers in its ecosystem since 2017.

• Google Gemini: Grew from 1.4M to 7M developers in one year.

📊 Must-Know AI Adoption & Investment Stats (2025)

1. 800M weekly active users on ChatGPT (April 2025) – up 8x in 17 months

2. ChatGPT reached 365B annual searches in 2 years — 5.5x faster than Google

3. Big Six tech companies’ AI CapEx = $212B in 2024, up +63% since 2014

4. AI job postings in the U.S. rose +448% since 2018, while non-AI IT jobs fell -9%

5. China’s industrial robot installs now rival U.S. totals, marking geopolitical parity

6. Training compute for AI models has grown +360% annually for 15 years (Epoch AI)

We stand at an inflection point that feels familiar—but faster. AI is doing to information what the printing press did to books, what electricity did to light, and what the Internet did to connection. But this time, the compounding effect is exponential.

Unlike the slow ramp of Internet adoption, AI went global on day one. OpenAI’s ChatGPT was history’s fastest-growing consumer application, and it’s not just a Silicon Valley darling anymore—it’s a global workhorse, embedded in software, medicine, logistics, finance, and even art.

But with this acceleration comes danger. We’re now building infrastructure where “truth-seeking” must be a system property, not a moral aspiration. The geopolitical chess match between the U.S. and China is not just about economic edge—it’s a race to define the ethical spine of AI.

We face a paradox: AI can either raise the ceiling of our potential or drop the floor out from under us. And it’s not hyperbole. These machines now pass the Turing test, simulate human behavior, and generate realistic voices, images, and reasoning. In Q1 2025, 73% of AI-generated responses were mistaken as human-written.

Yet, optimism remains warranted. As Stephen Hawking said: “Success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. But it could also be the last—unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”

Let’s bet on what can go right, but design for what can go wrong.

📈 Top Figures & Facts (from the Report)

• ChatGPT Revenue (2024): Estimated ~$3.4B

• AI Model Training Growth (2010–2025):

• CapEx Growth of Big Six (2014–2024): +63%, now $212B

• AI Job Growth (2018–2025):

🌍 AI’s Global Expansion: China, Open-Source, and Beyond

• China is rapidly scaling LLMs and deploying AI in real-world applications (robotics, translation, autonomous vehicles).

• Open-source AI is pushing innovation beyond borders—but challenging monetization and control.

• Developing regions are adopting AI faster than past tech waves due to smartphone penetration and cloud access.

🧠 Strategic Implications for Leaders

• Treat AI adoption as infrastructure, not initiative

• Track not just tools, but CapEx and ecosystem momentum

• Prepare for global, multi-model competition—not just one dominant player

• Design ethics and oversight into AI deployment early, not retroactively

💬 Final Word: Human Strategy in an AI World

The defining trait of this AI era isn’t just speed—it’s simultaneity. AI is emerging everywhere, all at once. That’s both exhilarating and unnerving.

But like the Internet, the smartphone, and electricity before it, AI will become invisible by becoming indispensable.

The real question isn’t whether AI is coming—it’s who shapes it, how it’s used, and whether we remain in control.

Let’s stay curious, cautious, and, above all, courageous.

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A. Pawlowski | The Strategy Stack