ChatGPT will spark an AI arms race between Microsoft, Google, and other tech giants as they rush to capitalize on a $800 billion market opportunity, Wedbush says

• Artificial intelligence will be a $800 billion market opportunity over the next decade, Wedbush says.
• Microsoft, Google-parent Alphabet, and other Big Tech companies are set to benefit, Dan Ives says.

Artificial intelligence will be worth a whopping $800 billion to businesses over the next 10 years, and Big Tech companies will spend aggressively to capture as much of that as they can, Wedbush says.

Dan Ives, a managing director and tech specialist at the firm, said Sunday that ChatGPT's soaring popularity this year fired the starting gun for a "Game of Thrones"-type war between some of the US's biggest listed companies.

"This battle will be a long one over the next decade as we expect other technology companies besides Google (Bard), such as Apple, Meta, and other tech stalwarts along with smaller players in the industry, to collectively spend billions in this AI arms race over the coming years," he said in a research note seen by Insider.

"This is an $800 billion market opportunity over the next decade as this AI Game of Thrones plays out across the enterprise and consumer tech space," he added.

The soaring popularity of ChatGPT has been one of the defining stories of 2023 for markets – with big-name investors like Bill Ackman and Stanley Druckenmiller piling into AI-related Big Tech stocks.

Microsoft – which has reportedly invested $13 billion into ChatGPT creator OpenAI and already integrated the intelligent language bot into some of its operations – is best-positioned to win the AI war, Ives argued.

"We believe this was a great first-mover advantage for Microsoft, capitalizing on an opportunity that has been brewing for the past few years," Ives said.

"Given Microsoft's pedigree of properly monetizing its line, we believe this will be a massive transformation for the company, from Bing to Azure," he added, referring to the tech giant's search engine and cloud computing business.

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