More Tales From Nvidia: Hundreds of Billions Dollars of Capex for Limited Use Cases (Issue #270!)
Two interesting data points on AI agents like Muse from earnings just reported:
* Uber ($UBER) recorded 320 million rides and Uber Eats orders during Halloween week alone. Of that total, only four rides, and 500 Uber Eats orders came from agents.
* Booking.com ($BKNG) reported, and indicated almost no impact from AI agents skirting their system.
Both are outperforming by a fair bit today.
In both cases, I really do not understand the use case for an agent.
For example, in the case of travel, you could do a simple search and query “give me a list of hotels in Paris near the Eiffel Tower for under $500 a night that were not firebombed in the recent riots” and then go to one of Booking’s websites and look at the details of each hotel and book. Or more simply, on one of the Booking websites, just put in Eifel tower as the location, price limit of $500 a night (or sort by price), and then pick one.
Or you could do the same query on an agent, and add “and then book it for me.” Which is possible. But who really wants to let the agent to make the decision for them? Shopping also happens to be something people like to do. Then of course you are taking all sorts of risk w/regard to the agent having your credit card, and the decisions it actually makes.
It is not different for booking a ride via Uber. There is no value added to asking the agent “book me a ride to point A, but I don’t want to pay more than $20.” The agent does not get to pick the price. This adds no value beyond going to the Uber app itself, and seeing the prices, and deciding if you want the ride. Thusly the four car rides booked via an agent.
It is not that different for Uber Eats. People like to shop the actual options. Only the biggest nerds with invented use cases, will do things like “order me what I ordered last Friday night” or “I want to make meatloaf, please deliver me all the ingredients.” There is some novelty to this, but really, is it all that useful? For those that like to cook, do you really want the agent making the choice of both recipe, and the different ingredients? Plus, what do you do when it sends you road kill? And again, the agent has your credit card!
That is why the agents are barely being used even when they are FREE. A lot of downloads, little practical use or value.
Then hundreds of billions of capex, for what seem to be very limited and not high value-added use cases. Angry Birds added more value!
I will be shocked if there is any return at all on all the capex. These agents seem to be a solution for a problem that really does not exist. But they have created a lot of borrowings and stock sales, that is for sure.
I am also curious if you can get Muse to play in the Metaverse on your behalf while wearing Oculus VR goggles?
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