To create A.I. businesses, experts predicted, $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Mr. Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems, which is what internet companies did decades ago.
As a member of Goldman’s working group on A.I., he reviewed a service that used generative A.I. to automatically update analysts’ spreadsheets with companies’ financial results. He said it saved his analysts about 20 minutes of time per company but cost six times as much money.
I think this is exactly it. AI is too expensive in terms of energy use and is highly subsidized by venture capital at the moment. The minute that money dries up there won't be enough of a payoff to justify the expense.
New York Times