Opinions mixed on whether OpenAI will become next tech giant or is doomed to fail

Investor Michael Burry, made famous in the 2015 film The Big Short, recently likened OpenAI to Netscape, which ruled the web browser market in the mid-1990s only to lose to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

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“OpenAl is the next Netscape, doomed and haemorrhaging cash,” Mr Burry said recently in a post on X.

Researcher Gary Marcus, known for being sceptical of Al hype, sees OpenAl as having lost the lead it captured with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.

The startup is “burning billions of dollars a month”, Mr Marcus said of OpenAl.

“Given how long the writing has been on the wall, I can only shake my head” as it falls, he said.

Yet, ChatGPT was a tech launch like no other, breaking all consumer product growth records and now boasting more than 800 million weekly users, both paid subscription and unpaid.

OpenAl’s valuation has soared to US$500 billion (S$645 billion) in funding rounds, higher than any other private company.

But the ChatGPT maker will end 2025 with a loss of several billion dollars and does not expect to be profitable before 2029, an eternity in the fast-moving and uncertain world of Al.