[kwlug-disc] is AI profitable?

[Raymond Chen]

I sent the link to AI and it responded:

I’d be cautious with  isaiprofitable.com.

>From what I can tell, it’s more of a provocative “AI economics tracker”
than a rigorous financial analysis platform. The core message — that most
AI companies are spending huge amounts while only a few infrastructure
players like NVIDIA are making large profits — is directionally reasonable.
Even mainstream coverage has echoed that framing.

That said, there are a few things I’d watch for:

   - The site doesn’t appear to provide transparent methodology, audited
   data sources, or detailed assumptions.
   - The numbers are likely estimates stitched together from public
   reports, capex disclosures, and speculation.
   - “AI profitability” is extremely hard to measure because:
      - AI revenue is often bundled into cloud/business units
      - companies capitalize infrastructure differently
      - R&D accounting varies
      - many firms are intentionally in growth mode, not profit mode

So the site may be useful as:

   - a conversation starter
   - a macro sentiment indicator
   - a simplified visualization of AI spending vs returns

But I would not use it for:

   - investment decisions
   - precise financial conclusions
   - technical market analysis

One thing the site *does* get right conceptually: there’s a real
distinction between:

   1. Infrastructure winners
   Example: GPU vendors, cloud providers
   2. Application-layer AI companies
   Many are still subsidizing users heavily

A good real-world analogy:

   - During the gold rush, shovel sellers often made steadier money than
   prospectors.
   - In AI, NVIDIA selling GPUs has often been more profitable than AI apps
   trying to monetize end users.

I also couldn’t find much independent reputation history or strong
third-party validation around the site itself. The only broader mentions I
found were articles discussing its claims, not validating its accuracy.
😁

On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 20:52 CrankyOldBugger <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Guy at work sent me this link:
>
> https://isaiprofitable.com/
>
>
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