Mary Meeker and the BOND team have released their much-anticipated 2025 Internet Trends report—and this year, the focus is clear: Artificial Intelligence. What began as a collection of “disparate data-points” turned into a sweeping 300+ page document detailing how AI is transforming everything—from internet usage and enterprise software to labor markets and geopolitics (p. 2).
1. AI Adoption is Outpacing the Internet Era
In just 17 months, OpenAI’s ChatGPT scaled from 100 million to 800 million weekly active users, an 8x growth rate that dwarfs the pace of early internet platforms (p. 55).
“AI user and usage trending is ramping materially faster…and the machines can outpace us.” – Mary Meeker, p. 2
To put it into context, while the Internet took 23 years to reach 90% of its global user base outside North America, ChatGPT did it in just three years (p. 56).
2. Capital Expenditure in AI is Exploding
Tech giants—Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon (AWS), and Meta—are projected to spend a massive $212B in CapEx in 2024, a 63% increase over the last decade (p. 97). This is not just infrastructure—it’s a full-scale arms race to define the future of AI platforms.
3. Performance Up, Costs Down
Training compute has grown at 360% annually over the past 15 years (p. 15), while inference costs per token have steadily fallen. This convergence has spurred developer participation: NVIDIA’s AI ecosystem has grown to 6 million developers (p. 38), and Google’s Gemini AI ecosystem now boasts 7 million developers, a 5x year-over-year increase (p. 39).
4. Simultaneous Global Adoption
Unlike the first wave of the internet, AI adoption isn’t starting in Silicon Valley and diffusing globally—it’s going global from day one. China is not only a key competitor but also a significant contributor to open-source models and industrial robotics (p. 289, p. 293).
“AI leadership could beget geopolitical leadership – and not vice-versa.” – p. 8
5. AI Is Reshaping the Workforce
AI job postings in the U.S. have surged by +448% since 2018, while non-AI tech roles are actually down 9% (p. 302). Across enterprises, over 75% of global CMOs are already using or testing generative AI tools (p. 70). And legacy players like JP Morgan and Kaiser Permanente are modernizing entire systems using AI (p. 72, p. 73).
6. AI Has Gone Human
In a March 2025 study, 73% of participants mistook AI responses as human in Turing-style tests (p. 42). ChatGPT and other models are now matching or surpassing human performance on reasoning benchmarks like MMLU (p. 41), and generating realistic images, audio, and even translated voices (p. 44–47).
7. Risks Are Real, But So Is Optimism
The report is also clear about the risks: algorithmic bias, employment displacement, surveillance, and AI weaponisation. But the long-term view leans optimistic:
“Success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. But it could also be the last – unless we learn how to avoid the risks.” – Stephen Hawking, p. 51
Final Thoughts
AI is no longer a lab experiment—it is the defining technology of our time. As Mary Meeker puts it, the compounding power of AI is now layered on top of decades of internet infrastructure. The result? Faster adoption, broader impact, and massive change.
Whether you’re a technologist, policymaker, or curious citizen, the message is clear: It’s AI-first now.
Full Report: https://www.bondcap.com/report/tai/#view/0
