AI race moves beyond chatbots

Summary

CNBC's Deirdre Bosa reports on OpenAI's push to monetize API usage — the enterprise and developer channel that runs AI models inside customers' own products — as the AI race shifts beyond chatbots. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar floated a value-exchange model in which OpenAI could take a cut of customers' AI-aided discoveries, sparking debate over who owns AI inputs and who gets paid for outcomes. The segment also notes that Google's Gemini is growing API usage and highlights the pressure on OpenAI to fund over $1 trillion in locked-in commitments.

• OpenAI is touting API usage as a fast-growing business separate from ChatGPT.
• APIs let enterprises and developers run AI models directly inside their own products and workflows.
• OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar floated a value-exchange model where OpenAI could take a cut of AI-aided discoveries.
• Critics pointed to the irony of charging for value built on scraped copyrighted data.
• Google's Gemini is also growing API usage, a metric expected to receive more attention.
• OpenAI faces pressure to find revenue to support more than $1 trillion in locked-in commitments.
• The discussion compared the proposed economics to the App Store model.