The world’s richest man has entered the artificial intelligence (AI) race…

Elon Musk has announced the release of his new AI chatbot.

It’s called Grok, after the classic sci-fi book Stranger in a Strange Land.

In the book, “to grok” literally means “to drink.” But more broadly, it means “to understand profoundly and intuitively.”

Musk designed his AI to do tasks ranging from information searches to computer coding. That makes it similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude.

And as mainstream reporters have been focusing on, it has a sense of humor.

Grok is still in beta testing. It’s not yet available to the public for another couple of days. But apparently, it cracks jokes, tells funny stories, and even answers “spicy” questions.

Here’s a response Grok gave to a question about how to make cocaine.

Grok also has access to up-to-minute info on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). That’s something no other AI chatbot has.

Musk made sure that no other AI company could “scrape” data from his platform.

But what has me most excited about Grok is that it will put AI in the hands of a whole new group of users – folks on social media.

This will bring us closer to the “everywhere” phase of the AI boom I’ve been writing to you about.

And it means a whole new set of opportunities to profit.

Hardware, Software, Everywhere

Regular readers will know that I see the AI book playing out much like the internet boom played out – in three phases.

The first phase is the hardware phase.

Before we could stream movies on Netflix and talk to folks thousands of miles away on Zoom, we had to lay the physical foundations of the internet.

We laid more than 90 million miles of fiber optic cables… linked them up with switchers and routers… and built out the global network of data centers we call the “cloud.”

But this infrastructure wasn’t built to handle AI at scale.

Grok and other AI systems process massive amounts of data and use complex algorithms. So, they use vastly more computing power than regular internet apps.

That’s why we need a special kind of chip called a GPU (graphics processing unit) to make this happen. Like the human brain, GPUs can do multiple operations at once. That makes them lightning-fast for the computationally intense AI tasks.

We also need solid-state drives to store the data sets we train these systems on… a high-bandwidth networking kit for shunting data between different parts of these systems… and cooling systems to manage the extra heat they throw off.

Once that physical infrastructure is in place, companies can begin to work on AI-powered software to make use of these resources.

ChatGPT was the first – and most popular – AI software breakthrough. Since it launched in November 2022, it has more than 180 million users.

That’s a lot of people. And it’s growing. But that’s still only about 3% of the world’s 5 billion internet users.

And that’s understandable. Few people had even heard of OpenAI when it released ChatGPT. To use it, you had to download a new app. It wasn’t available on any of the apps you already used.

Grok is different. It’s the first AI to be embedded into a popular social media app.

And it’s going to kick off frenzied competition.

Soon, we’ll see AI systems become available across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and other social media sites.

That will put AI into the hands of billions of new users. 

Biggest Tech Boom in History

AI hasn’t had its “everywhere” moment yet. But it’s coming.

And the Grok announcement isn’t the only development that brings us closer to this new phase of the boom.

This week, OpenAI announced that its users will be able to build their own customized ChatGPT bots. And it’s going to launch a store to allow them to sell these customized bots to other users.

Think of it as an app store for AI chatbots.

I can see parents making a custom chatbot just to help their kids with school… or companies making a chatbot for their employees to use.

That means more useful bots are going to proliferate. And it’s happening now.

Most investors aren’t aware of it yet. But we’re in the early phases of the biggest tech boom in history.

If you’re subscribed to my Near Future Report or Exponential Tech Investor advisories, you’re already getting my top recommendations to profit from the AI revolution.

For example, on Monday, I recommended two stocks to Near Future Report subscribers that have a lock on the AI chip fabrication market.

Without these companies, the AI boom – along with the benefits it brings – would come to a screeching halt.

They’re also working on the next generation of chip technology that will make AI even more powerful.

If you’re a Near Future Report subscriber, you can catch up on my write-up here.

And if you’re not a paid-up subscriber and you’re interested in profiting from the AI boom, just remember that it will play out in three phases – hardware, software, everywhere.

This year has been mostly about the hardware phase of the boom.

That’s why revenues for AI chipmaker Nvidia shot up as much as 87% this year.

It’s also why its share price has rocketed 214% so far this year.

But we’re also seeing the software phase start to unfold. It’s why shares in Microsoft – a multi-trillion dollar company – are up 57% year to date.

Microsoft is building AI into nearly every software service it offers. Some Microsoft 365 users can already use the company’s new AI assistant, Copilot, to help them write emails through Outlook or build slide decks in PowerPoint.

Once access to AI is common, it will be everywhere. AI will become a staple for nearly every software you use. And companies will have custom AIs that can help improve research, productivity, and ultimately profitability.

We aren’t there yet. AI hasn’t reached mainstream adoption. But that’s where we’re headed.

Then we’ll get to a whole new raft of opportunities, as AI makes businesses and individuals more productive.

Regards,

Colin Tedards
Editor, The Bleeding Edge