00:00:02
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: Podcasts.
00:00:05
Speaker 3: Radio. News.
00:00:09
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: Open AI, the story now is getting political, it seems like, Scarlett. I mean, we have President Trump out saying... to these AI companies, continue to spend, continue to invest.
00:00:33
Speaker 4: There's nothing to worry about. Move on, move on, move on.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Nothing to worry about. And I think he raises a very good point, which is this is kind of competitive race, China versus the West, China versus the U.S. So to the extent you do maybe pull back for whatever reason, you do run the risk of maybe falling behind.
00:00:49
Speaker 4: But it's a sensitive time to be saying all this because lawmakers are gearing up for the midterm elections and they need to be at least listening to their constituents. And a lot of constituents have a lot of concerns about AI and what it's going to do to the economy, to their jobs, to their livelihood.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: All right, let's see what investors are saying. Matthew Bloxham joins us here. He's a Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Tech Media Telecom Analyst. He's based in London. So how do you think this is playing out? Matt, as it relates to, we've got some of the leaders in AI saying, okay, we think we need to just kind of slow down and make sure we know what's going on here. Whereas maybe there's some political pressure to keep moving forward. How do you think this might play out?
00:01:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think in the short term, the best we can hope for in terms of clarity would be some kind of voluntary industry guidelines. It kind of feels to me that we're heading in that direction, given that letter that came out. Over the weekend was kind of endorsed by all the kind of three big main players. So that would be the quickest route to set something that they're all prepared to kind of abide by. And then eventually maybe the kind of U.S. government would. agree on some kind of legislation that would set some more specific or tighter constraints around what isn't permissible. But as we all know, legislation can take a long time to get through the process and doesn't always necessarily end up in a good place in terms of supporting the industry. I think for now... industry guidelines would be the best way forward.
00:02:33
Speaker 4: That was a very polite way of putting it in terms of Congress getting anything done. Matt, in terms of the IPOs that we're anticipating from OpenAI and Anthropic, OpenAI has made clear it's a 2027 event, not a 2026 event. How are we thinking about what this means for Anthropic filing for an IPO?
00:02:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, also, they've been quite quiet on timing. I would imagine they're still keen to go this year. That's just my view, though. Also, they've kind of been flagging recently through press channels that the company was profitable for a second quarter in a row. So that kind of suggests that they're still kind of maintaining that momentum there. As we all know, IPO schedules are incredibly sensitive to stock market sentiment. I think it will really flip on whether this selling pressure we've seen in the last couple of days persists or whether we get a bit of a bounce back. Obviously, there's a lot of debate out there yesterday and today about the extent to which any guardrails or self-imposed restrictions would slow down demand for AI. And that would obviously impact the revenue outlook for Anthropic. So I think that's going to be quite critical. My own perspective on that is that I don't see any near-term slowdown in demand. The models that enterprises have at their disposal today are plenty sophisticated enough for them to deploy very sophisticated overlays to their businesses. I think that the demand outlook is still going to look pretty robust.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: We had Dan Ives on earlier in the surveillance program this morning, and not surprisingly, he said the money's going to continue to flow, the investment's going to continue to, the companies are going to continue to invest in AI, no slowdown from that perspective. Is that kind of what we're hearing from the companies themselves?
00:04:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's still early days, I think, but I think that's true, United. And I think to some degree, you know, if there is some agreed set of principles about a slowdown in, you know, the kind of real leading edge frontier model development, a lot of that investment is going to find its way into other parts of their existing models that they can make more competitive to kind of create differentiation or perhaps kind of look in other avenues. So rather than kind of pushing forward the boundaries of artificial intelligence. They start to look at the boundaries around efficiency of these models in terms of power consumption or speed or other parameters. And so I think there's still lots of areas that that investment can go to.
00:05:24
Speaker 4: Matt, what will you be listening for and watching for next as the public outcry over AI safety concerns continues to build?
00:05:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, personally, I'm kind of going to be primarily focused on what the companies say. My view would still be that the next or kind of the near term goal would be to create some kind of. voluntary industry framework that they'll agree to abide by. But obviously, you know, there's going to be an enormous amount of political rhetoric from every direction about what should or shouldn't be done. But as I said, you know, I don't think anybody's expecting any legislation to kind of be imposed anytime soon. And my sense would be from everything we've seen through the history of the U.S., whatever legislation comes is going to be fairly light touch.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: So here, Matt, as you're probably aware, AI is getting some pushback from just the marketplace in general, from consumer groups. It's become political here. How is it in the UK and Europe? How's the AI vibe amongst consumers?
00:06:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's holding up pretty well. I mean, I'd say that probably relative to the US, the European markets, there was perhaps a little bit more kind of So they're less gung-ho about kind of adoption. Adoption is pretty good. But, you know, I think perhaps that there's already more checks and balances in most European markets about, for example, the deployment market. of new data centers, the environmental impacts that could have. So I think the kind of pace of development along the lines of those kind of perhaps environmentally or politically sensitive dimensions is kind of slower. So things are not quite as magnified here as they are in the US, I wouldn't think.
00:07:29
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday, 10 a.m. to noon Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
00:00:04
Speaker 2: Podcasts.
00:00:05
Speaker 3: Radio. News.
00:00:09
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: Open AI, the story now is getting political, it seems like, Scarlett. I mean, we have President Trump out saying... to these AI companies, continue to spend, continue to invest.
00:00:33
Speaker 4: There's nothing to worry about. Move on, move on, move on.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Nothing to worry about. And I think he raises a very good point, which is this is kind of competitive race, China versus the West, China versus the U.S. So to the extent you do maybe pull back for whatever reason, you do run the risk of maybe falling behind.
00:00:49
Speaker 4: But it's a sensitive time to be saying all this because lawmakers are gearing up for the midterm elections and they need to be at least listening to their constituents. And a lot of constituents have a lot of concerns about AI and what it's going to do to the economy, to their jobs, to their livelihood.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: All right, let's see what investors are saying. Matthew Bloxham joins us here. He's a Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Tech Media Telecom Analyst. He's based in London. So how do you think this is playing out? Matt, as it relates to, we've got some of the leaders in AI saying, okay, we think we need to just kind of slow down and make sure we know what's going on here. Whereas maybe there's some political pressure to keep moving forward. How do you think this might play out?
00:01:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think in the short term, the best we can hope for in terms of clarity would be some kind of voluntary industry guidelines. It kind of feels to me that we're heading in that direction, given that letter that came out. Over the weekend was kind of endorsed by all the kind of three big main players. So that would be the quickest route to set something that they're all prepared to kind of abide by. And then eventually maybe the kind of U.S. government would. agree on some kind of legislation that would set some more specific or tighter constraints around what isn't permissible. But as we all know, legislation can take a long time to get through the process and doesn't always necessarily end up in a good place in terms of supporting the industry. I think for now... industry guidelines would be the best way forward.
00:02:33
Speaker 4: That was a very polite way of putting it in terms of Congress getting anything done. Matt, in terms of the IPOs that we're anticipating from OpenAI and Anthropic, OpenAI has made clear it's a 2027 event, not a 2026 event. How are we thinking about what this means for Anthropic filing for an IPO?
00:02:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, also, they've been quite quiet on timing. I would imagine they're still keen to go this year. That's just my view, though. Also, they've kind of been flagging recently through press channels that the company was profitable for a second quarter in a row. So that kind of suggests that they're still kind of maintaining that momentum there. As we all know, IPO schedules are incredibly sensitive to stock market sentiment. I think it will really flip on whether this selling pressure we've seen in the last couple of days persists or whether we get a bit of a bounce back. Obviously, there's a lot of debate out there yesterday and today about the extent to which any guardrails or self-imposed restrictions would slow down demand for AI. And that would obviously impact the revenue outlook for Anthropic. So I think that's going to be quite critical. My own perspective on that is that I don't see any near-term slowdown in demand. The models that enterprises have at their disposal today are plenty sophisticated enough for them to deploy very sophisticated overlays to their businesses. I think that the demand outlook is still going to look pretty robust.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: We had Dan Ives on earlier in the surveillance program this morning, and not surprisingly, he said the money's going to continue to flow, the investment's going to continue to, the companies are going to continue to invest in AI, no slowdown from that perspective. Is that kind of what we're hearing from the companies themselves?
00:04:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's still early days, I think, but I think that's true, United. And I think to some degree, you know, if there is some agreed set of principles about a slowdown in, you know, the kind of real leading edge frontier model development, a lot of that investment is going to find its way into other parts of their existing models that they can make more competitive to kind of create differentiation or perhaps kind of look in other avenues. So rather than kind of pushing forward the boundaries of artificial intelligence. They start to look at the boundaries around efficiency of these models in terms of power consumption or speed or other parameters. And so I think there's still lots of areas that that investment can go to.
00:05:24
Speaker 4: Matt, what will you be listening for and watching for next as the public outcry over AI safety concerns continues to build?
00:05:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, personally, I'm kind of going to be primarily focused on what the companies say. My view would still be that the next or kind of the near term goal would be to create some kind of. voluntary industry framework that they'll agree to abide by. But obviously, you know, there's going to be an enormous amount of political rhetoric from every direction about what should or shouldn't be done. But as I said, you know, I don't think anybody's expecting any legislation to kind of be imposed anytime soon. And my sense would be from everything we've seen through the history of the U.S., whatever legislation comes is going to be fairly light touch.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: So here, Matt, as you're probably aware, AI is getting some pushback from just the marketplace in general, from consumer groups. It's become political here. How is it in the UK and Europe? How's the AI vibe amongst consumers?
00:06:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's holding up pretty well. I mean, I'd say that probably relative to the US, the European markets, there was perhaps a little bit more kind of So they're less gung-ho about kind of adoption. Adoption is pretty good. But, you know, I think perhaps that there's already more checks and balances in most European markets about, for example, the deployment market. of new data centers, the environmental impacts that could have. So I think the kind of pace of development along the lines of those kind of perhaps environmentally or politically sensitive dimensions is kind of slower. So things are not quite as magnified here as they are in the US, I wouldn't think.
00:07:29
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday, 10 a.m. to noon Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
