A senior analyst of a fund manager specialising in exchange-traded funds has suggested the artificial intelligence (AI) sector is still only in its infancy and predicted the investment opportunities it will present will significantly escalate in the near future.
Global X senior investment strategist Billy Leung suggested parallels should be made to the evolution of the mobile phone sector to glean a true understanding of the potential upside companies involved in the AI industry can present.
“I became an analyst [when smartphones entered the market] and I was modelling how fast the mobile phone adoption was going to go and I had no idea what was going to happen. The thing is we started off with a few apps – we had WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. No one made money from these apps, but they were getting a lot of users,” Leung told attendees of SMSF Trustee Empowerment Day 2025, co-hosted by smstrusteenews and the SMSF Association recently.
“This is where we are at now with AI. We have a lot of platforms and a lot of applications that are not making money. Everyone is using ChatGPT and 70 per cent of users are not paying for it, but the thing is this is the platform that people get used to the new innovation and that’s why we are building that platform.
“The next level is where we build value and actually monetise [the developments in the sector].”
Again, he referred back to the experience of the mobile phone sector to illustrate how this could unfold for AI-related companies.
“Remember what happened with mobile phones. We got apps like Angry Birds, Candy Crush, my wife is still playing Candy Crush right now, we got Pokemon and we got Uber. These are what we call the ‘killer apps’ and are the ones that actually create value, monetise and commercialise [the sector],” he said.
“This is where the money is made and I think this is exactly what’s happening with AI right now. We see AI being applied to advertising, media, robotics and healthcare.
“We are right at the cusp of where AI monetisation of true value is coming.”