David Edwards
Business executives have received a stern warning from TV personality and investor Kevin O’Leary: disregard artificial intelligence (AI) at your own risk. O’Leary asserts that a business is no longer a wise investment if it does not include AI into its operations, especially in marketing and client acquisition.
In a recent interview, O’Leary underlined that the jump in requests for content development over the last three years has resulted in a significant increase in the cost of acquiring new customers. “The cost of content creation has more than quadrupled—in some cases, it’s gone up 10x,” he noted. AI, on the other hand, is currently reducing such expenses by an estimated 60%, significantly changing the dynamics of return on investment in digital marketing.
O’Leary claims he now investigates a company’s AI approach before investing in it. “Before I meet the CEO, I want to know who is running the show in terms of customer acquisition. Who’s managing the AI? What tech stacks are in use? What tools drive your content, and who runs your social media?”
O’Leary sees AI from a national security perspective in addition to cost effectiveness. The strategic importance of preserving American leadership in the AI industry was emphasized by the investor. He compared AI developers to worker bees and sophisticated chips to the queen bee, emphasizing the significance of chip manufacturing to national AI leadership, and declared, “We are in a technological war with China.”
O’Leary has made investments in infrastructure as part of his dedication to AI. He owns stock in Bitzero, a high-performance computing and Bitcoin mining company with operations in North Dakota, Norway, and Finland. “Owning the infrastructure—the data centers, the hardware—is a far more sustainable and profitable model than investing in companies merely consuming these technologies,” he explained. Drawing on a historical metaphor, he added, “In the gold rush, the real money was made selling picks and shovels, not chasing gold.”
O’Leary warns that measures to preserve American technical dominance must be balanced with the U.S.’s tightening restrictions on exporting AI chips to nations like China. He cautions that trade restrictions could unintentionally provide competitors the ability to create competing AI architectures.
