Who's Actually Paying for AI?

Part 2 of the a16z leaderboard story: the spenders.

a16z's latest data shows only the builders and the productivity crowd are actually paying for AI subscriptions. The masses just aren't interested in paying. Free tiers get the traffic; a thin slice of power users carries the revenue.

That's the uncomfortable math under the whole consumer AI boom. Hundreds of millions of users, a small fraction of payers. The models keep getting more expensive to run while the willingness to pay stays flat for everyone outside the builder class.

Which raises the real question: where does the money come from? Advertising, distribution bundles, or assistants people actually live inside. Part 3 looks at why spend and traffic don't move together.