The Advisor's Edge: AI is creating new billionaires at a record pace

Artificial intelligence startups have minted dozens of new billionaires this year, adding to an AI boom that’s quickly becoming the largest wealth creation spree in recent history.

Blockbuster fundraising rounds this year for Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence, OpenAI, Anysphere, and other startups have created vast new paper fortunes and propelled valuations to record levels. There are now 498 AI “unicorns,” or private AI companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, with a combined value of $2.7 trillion, according to CB Insights. Fully 100 of them were founded since 2023. There are more than 1,300 AI startups with valuations of over $100 million, the firm said.

Combined with the soaring stock prices of Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft and other publicly traded AI-related firms, along with the infrastructure companies that are building data centers and computing power and the huge payouts for AI engineers, AI is creating personal wealth on a scale that makes the past two tech waves look like warmups.

“Going back over 100 years of data, we have never seen wealth created at this size and speed,” said Andrew McAfee, principal researcher at MIT. “It’s unprecedented.”

A new crop of billionaires is rising with skyrocketing valuations. In March, Bloomberg estimated that four of the largest private AI companies had created at least 15 billionaires with a combined net worth of $38 billion. More than a dozen unicorns have been crowned since then.

Where we go from here will most likely be unprecedented in its scope as well.

Until next time.

David

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer