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This article summarizes an episode of Stripe’s video series featuring Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

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The business model of trapping users inside high-margin software is over. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, argues that as AI gets smarter, it will operate as an invisible background engine, turning advanced technology into a cheap and easily accessible public utility.

To prevent a monopoly on intelligence, business leaders must shift focus away from digital interfaces and prioritize physical compute power, energy infrastructure, and internal data transparency.

The math behind smart computers

While traditional software companies built closed systems to trap users and raise profits, this shift toward utility-based AI destroys that model.

As models get smarter, the difficulty of moving data between companies drops to zero, ending the era of high-margin software. This forces a new economic reality for tech companies:

• Profits shrink as smart programs move work across competing networks.
• Winning the market relies on delivering huge amounts of cheap computing power.
• Companies succeed by becoming invisible background engines.
• Billing mimics charging for electricity.
• Survival depends on buying physical hardware to support millions of users.

Altman explains that the future of AI looks like a utility company, not a traditional tech monopoly. “I would like us to be an infrastructure provider. I’d be happy for us to be a forever low-margin [company] as long as we can be huge and growing fast,” he explains.

Because switching costs are evaporating, he warns, “This is actually a consequence of AI getting smarter. It gets easier to switch… and just say, ‘Hey, agent, go do this thing for me.’”

Changing how we use computers

Delegating work to an agent requires a complete departure from modern computing, which currently forces users to manually act as the glue between disconnected applications. Moving intelligence to the background removes the traditional user interface.

As task automation becomes the most valuable area in tech, the business world must prepare for several changes:

• Writing code serves as the first test for automating computer work.
• Usage explodes once people trust computers to execute tasks independently.
• People multiply output by skipping manual work between disconnected programs.
• Standard screens and menus quickly become obsolete hurdles.
• A new system must emerge to let smart programs talk directly to each other.

Altman believes that once people realize they can sit back and let an AI handle this daily drudgery, they will experience a massive improvement in their quality of life.

Paying for the computers

Eliminating this through AI requires a huge physical footprint. The sheer cost forces tech giants into a multi-billion-dollar race to secure power and silicon. Business leaders outside the AI sector must view these network limits as a hard cap on their own growth.

Balancing physical delays with fast software updates

Forcing behavior changes across the company

Sharing the technology openly to prevent monopolies