AI’s Yawning Technochasm: How to Level the Playing Field

A software engineer with two decades of mastery, Sarah was the backbone of her company — until her firm traded network infrastructure for AI-driven systems.

Now, in her 40s, she’s reskilling from scratch, piecing together a fractured work life while execs toast a stock surge. Her story is foreboding, as tech layoffs continue to spike and investment in artificial intelligence continues to surge.

Then there’s Jay. A Midwest coder with no fancy degree, he tinkered in his garage with free AI tools in 2023. By 2024, he’d built a marketing automation gem that landed him a multimillion-dollar VC check. No corporate ladder, no Silicon Valley ZIP code — just a guy who saw the wave coming and surfed it to the top.

Reports from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) reveal that in countries where 60% of jobs are exposed to AI (like the U.S. and the U.K.), there’s a rough split between those who benefit from AI and those who are at its mercy. Some high-skilled workers are leveraging AI to command higher salaries. While lower-skilled workers are increasingly being displaced by AI. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum says artificial intelligence will spawn 170 million jobs like Jay’s by 2030…

The tech world is splitting in two. The question is: Which side of the chasm are you on?

On one side, execs pop Champagne as AI turbocharges stocks and mints new fortunes. On the other, workers like Sarah watch their careers vaporize overnight, replaced by algorithms they don’t understand. The rules of work and wealth are being rewritten, and most people are still playing the old game.

Five years ago, Eric Fry, Louis Navellier, and myself, spotted this tectonic shift ripping through the economy. We dubbed it the “Technochasm”… and we warned it would split the world into winners and losers.

What we didn’t fully grasp then? Artificial intelligence would pour jet fuel on this divide, turning a chasm into an abyss — overnight.

Forget what you think you know about technology “leveling the playing field.” AI isn’t here to save everyone — it’s here to crown winners and bury losers.

So, today we’ll dig deeper into how exactly artificial intelligence is widening the gulf between the haves and the have nots…

And how you can get to the other side unscathed.

AI’s Next Act: From Brute Force to Intelligent Application

The AI boom started with brute force — big data, bigger budgets, and chipmakers like Nvidia (NVDA) cashing in as data centers sprouted like weeds.

This worked … for a while.

That’s why, starting in late 2022, Louis Navellier, Eric Fry, and I first focused on the “picks and shovels” of the AI Revolution — the hardware companies, like Nvidia, that built the infrastructure on which artificial intelligence stands today.

These “AI Builders” saw their stocks soar as data centers expanded across the country. In hindsight, we nailed that phase.

But we’ve now entered a new, more sophisticated phase of the AI Revolution.

As Yann LeCunn, one of the “Godfathers of AI,” noted, we’re reaching a point where simply scaling up AI models produces diminishing returns. In other words, it’s time to move past the developers and the hardware firms that make their work possible.

The real value is shifting to what we call “AI Appliers” – nimble firms weaving imperfect artificial intelligence into real-world solutions.

Think less “supercomputer” and more “street-smart disruptor.”

This shift is where fortunes will be made — or lost. It’s no longer enough to simply adopt technology — companies must now integrate AI intelligently into their business models or risk obsolescence.

The proof is in the numbers. Goldman Sachs predicts AI could axe 300 million jobs worldwide. While this may sound like fear mongering, the job losses are already piling up…

In 2024 alone, 200,000 jobs evaporated due in large part to artificial intelligence — Cisco Corp. (CSCO) slashed 7% of its staff while pumping $1 billion into AI startups.

But there’s two sides to this coin: While some are losing jobs, like Sarah, others are building fortunes, like Jay.

It’s estimated that the AI-fueled stock boom has helped create at least 500,000 new millionaires in the U.S. alone. I suspect the actual number is much higher.

Just look at some of the returns from AI-focused companies:

• AppLovin Corp. (APP), which uses AI for marketing optimization, has skyrocketed over 3,000% since the AI boom began.
• Dave Inc. (DAVE), a digital bank using AI for credit analysis, climbed as much as 500% in roughly one year.
• IonQ Inc. (IONQ), which makes components for AI computing, saw its stock surge almost 600% in just four months.

Meanwhile, the losers are bleeding out, stuck in yesterday’s playbook.

This stark dichotomy between winners and losers is exactly what we predicted with the Technochasm thesis – but AI has accelerated and amplified these trends beyond what anyone imagined.

And we’re just getting started…