"Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money" with AI

OpenAI co -founder and CEO Sam Altman gave an interview to The Verge regarding the launch of the latest generation of the Artificial Intelligence model used in ChatGPT, GPT-5, and admitted that this area is currently experiencing a 'bubble'.

Altman admitted that the amount of money being invested in startups made up of "three people and an idea" is "crazy" due to the media attention some larger companies are receiving. "It's not rational behavior," Altman stated, noting that just as it will be possible to make a lot of money investing in Artificial Intelligence, there will also be people who are destined to lose.

"Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don't know who, and a lot of people are going to make a phenomenal amount of money," Altman said, pointing to the 1990s 'bubble' during the internet boom.

"When 'bubbles' happen, smart people get overly excited about a grain of truth. If you look at most 'bubbles' in history, like the tech bubble, you see that something real happened. Technology was a big deal. The internet was a big deal. People got overly excited," explained the OpenAI leader.

The reaction to the ChatGPT personality introduced with the GPT-5 model was so negative that OpenAI was forced to make the old Artificial Intelligence models available again.

Miguel Patinha Dias | 3:15 PM - 8/14/2025

The success of ChatGPT

OpenAI launched the ChatGPT app for Android and iOS phones in May 2023, and according to a new analysis by Appfigures, the app has already generated more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion) for the Artificial Intelligence company.

Data shared by this platform indicates that, this year alone, the official ChatGPT application has already generated more than $1.35 billion (€1.15 billion) - which corresponds to a 673% increase compared to the period between January and July 2024. What's more, the ChatGPT app generates (on average) close to $193 million (€164.9 million) per month, a significant increase compared to the $25 million (€21.3 million) it generated last year.

Compared to its competitors, ChatGPT's total revenue to date is thirty times higher than the combined revenue of rivals Claude (Anthropic), Grok (xAI), and Copilot (Microsoft). ChatGPT's average monthly revenue is also fifty-three times higher than that of its closest competitor, Grok, which currently stands at 'only' $25.6 million (€21.8 million).

In terms of downloads, Appfigures reports that ChatGPT will have been downloaded 318 million times by 2025, 2.8 times more than in the same period last year. India is the country with the most downloads of ChatGPT (13.7%), followed by the US (10.3%).

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