(Bloomberg) — The rise of ChatGPT has sparked fears that artificial intelligence will disrupt businesses of all kinds. Two years after the chatbot’s launch, the results haven’t been as cataclysmic as some investors predicted. But there is still a lot of anxiety.
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Earlier this month, Adobe Inc. shares plunged after it issued disappointing revenue forecasts. The report reignited concerns that despite developing its own AI tools, the company still risks losing business to startups like OpenAI and Runway AI. Shares of the maker of photo and video editing software are now poised for their worst month in more than two years.
Adobe is the latest warning for investors, although the jury is still out on whether AI will prove to be a boon or a bust for its company and others like it. Despite all this anxiety, the vision of winners and losers remains unclear.
“It’s too early to tell whether a company can adapt to AI or become a roadkill,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at DA Davidson. AI is the most disruptive technology since the Internet, but its market impact will take more than 24 months to manifest, Luria added.
Some companies that investors thought were risky have prospered. Take Duolingo Inc., the maker of language learning software. Its shares are up more than 50% this year despite tougher competition from AI startups. The company’s adoption of AI has helped reduce costs, and its expansion into other areas such as math and music is attracting new customers.
Internet services companies like GoDaddy Inc. and Wix.com Ltd., which have been labeled potential AI losers, have also seen their stocks soar. GoDaddy is up 93% while Wix.com has gained 80%. Pearson, another education company that was seen early on as being in ChatGPT’s crosshairs, saw its shares this month hit their highest level since 2015.
There are of course many other companies that have not done as well. A basket of Goldman Sachs stocks believed to face heightened AI risks has gained 21% since the end of 2022, compared with a 55% gain for the S&P 500 index.
The gap between expectations around AI and how things actually played out highlights the uncertainty surrounding this technology and the difficulty in predicting how it will shape markets and the economy. While tech giants like Microsoft Corp. continue to spend heavily on AI, the services are still not widely used, and it has taken longer than expected to generate comparable AI-related revenue.