Frame AI as a fundamental productivity shift, like the personal computer, that will achieve total market saturation. It's not a speculative bubble but a new, permanent layer of the economy that will be integrated into every business, even a local taco truck.

A technology like AI can create immense societal value without generating wealth for its early investors or creators. The value can be captured by consumers through lower prices or by large incumbents who leverage the technology. Distinguishing between value creation and value capture is critical for investment analysis.

The easy-to-understand and demonstrable power of AI has captured investor attention and capital that might otherwise go to Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin's significant educational lift, AI's value is immediately apparent, making it a "sexier" and more accessible investment thesis for those with disposable capital, thus acting as a narrative competitor.

Higgsfield initially saw high adoption for viral, consumer-facing AI features but pivoted. They realized foundation model players like OpenAI will dominate and subsidize these markets. The defensible startup strategy is to ignore consumer virality and solve specific, monetizable B2B workflow problems instead.

If AI is truly transformational, its greatest long-term value will accrue to non-tech companies that adopt it to improve productivity. Historical tech cycles show that after an initial boom, the producers of a new technology are eventually outperformed by its adopters across the wider economy.

A true investment thesis isn't just a popular idea. It must be a specific, actionable, and testable hypothesis that outlines growth drivers, expected performance, and the conditions for holding or selling the asset.

A new technology's adoption depends on its fit with a profession's core tasks. Spreadsheets were an immediate revolution for accountants but a minor tool for lawyers. Similarly, generative AI is transformative for coders and marketers but struggles to find a daily use case in many other professions.

Analysis shows that the themes venture capitalists and media hype in any given year are significantly delayed. Breakout companies like OpenAI were founded years before their sector became a dominant trend, suggesting that investing in the current "hot" theme is a strategy for being late.

After building numerous AI tools, Craig Hewitt realized many popular applications (e.g., AI avatars, voice cloning) are worthless novelties. He pivoted from creating flashy tech demos to focusing only on building commercially viable products that solve tangible business problems for customers.