AI's New Addiction: Attention as the Last Frontier of Profit
The Shift
AI was sold as a revolution. Instead, many top AI firms are quietly turning themselves into media companies.
The Pivot to Attention
The original pitch: build powerful models, sell APIs or subscriptions, let organizations integrate intelligence into every app. But behind the scenes, margins are brutal. The cost of GPUs, energy, data, and inference infrastructure is ballooning. Meanwhile, user subscriptions and API revenues are struggling to keep pace.
So what do you do when the core AI business isn't paying the bills? You chase attention — because attention is what advertisers will always buy.
That's the logic behind OpenAI's Sora, Meta's Vibes, and Google's rumored Veo/VO3 moves. Not because they believe social is the destiny of AI, but because social is the only path that can justify the cost.
1. The Cost Crisis
- Large tech firms are committing hundreds of billions to AI infrastructure. Google, Meta, and Microsoft are forecast to spend $274 billion in capital expenditures in 2025, largely to feed generative AI stacks.
- Meta recently announced a plan to offload $2 billion in data‑center assets to bring in partners to share infrastructure costs.
- OpenAI's public revenue is reportedly in the low billions, and while rising, still pales compared to the scale of GPU, networking, and energy ops.
In short: the core AI business is capital intensive and (so far) thin on margin. It can't scale on intelligence alone.
2. The Social Media Turn
Here's how the major players are repositioning:
-
OpenAI / Sora OpenAI's Sora is a text-to-video model that can generate stylized, cinematic videos from prompts. In late 2025, OpenAI launched Sora 2 as a standalone iOS social app where users can create, remix, and share 10-second AI-generated video clips in a TikTok-style feed. The feed is infinite-scroll, algorithmic, and built to get people into loops of creation and viewing. But that guardrail is already under stress: violent, racist, or misleading content has reportedly slipped through.
-
Meta / Vibes Meta recently added an AI-driven short video feed called Vibes inside its Meta AI app. It leans heavily into automated video generation and remixing features. Meta's infrastructure teams are reworking their data centers and networks to better support AI workloads, but the company is also trying to share cost burdens: hence the $2 billion data‑center asset sale to bring in partners.
-
Google / Veo or VO3 Google is reportedly integrating a video generation engine (codenamed "Veo 3") into YouTube + other surfaces, intending to fold generative content into its recommendation pipelines. While the name "VO3" is less confirmed than "Veo," insiders say Google is building a generative video stack to complement Gemini and YouTube's scale.
Essentially — every AI-heavy company is trying to anchor video generation to the scroll feed. Because a scroll feed translates into ad impressions.
3. The Economic Feedback Loop
The role of the stock market and politics is central here:
- AI hype now fuels valuations of Big Tech. Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet not only lead in hardware and cloud but also serve as proxies for the future of intelligence. Their market caps absorb capital flows and buoy overall market sentiment.
- Governments and regulators tacitly accept the AI arms race because it becomes a pillar of "national tech leadership." Tariffs, subsidies, and favorable policy help infrastructure-heavy AI firms survive. Meanwhile, the hype acts as a financial cushion.
- Because AI is so expensive to run, the only revenue model that can make sense — at scale — is monetizing eyeballs.
So we have a loop: AI infrastructure demands attention → attention is monetized via ads → attention justifies more investment → hype builds confidence → capital support continues.
4. What This Means
- The original promise of AI as a productivity tool risks being flattened into entertainment.
- Power shifts toward those who control recommendation engines and content pipelines — not those who build better models.
- Social AI systems are far more exposed to misinformation, polarization, and regulatory blowback.
- If the attention economy collapses, the AI giants will be left with unsustainable infrastructure.
The Real Bet
The bet being placed today is not on intelligence — it's on attention. The question isn't "which model wins?" — it's "which scroll feed wins?"
Over the next 12–18 months, we'll find out:
- Will people prefer AI-generated video feeds over human-created content?
- Will regulators claw back control over synthetic media?
- And when the ad dollars falter, do these firms have another leg to stand on?
If they don't — this pivot could be the beginning of a slow implosion, not a triumphant scaling.
The OpenAI Tool Release: A Critical Timeline
October 6th, 2025 — OpenAI releases their latest AI tool, marking a pivotal moment in this attention economy shift. This release comes just one day before this analysis, highlighting the rapid pace at which these companies are moving toward social-first AI experiences.
The timing is telling: as traditional AI business models struggle with margins, the race to capture attention through social platforms accelerates. This isn't just about better AI — it's about AI that keeps users scrolling, creating, and consuming.
What This Means for Your Business
If you're building with AI or investing in AI companies, this shift has profound implications:
-
Platform Dependency: Success increasingly depends on which social platforms you can leverage, not just which AI models you use.
-
Content Strategy: AI-generated content needs to be optimized for engagement, not just accuracy or utility.
-
Investment Focus: Look for AI companies that understand the attention economy, not just the technology.
-
Regulatory Risk: Social AI platforms face much higher regulatory scrutiny than enterprise AI tools.
Stay Ahead of the AI Revolution
The AI landscape is shifting faster than ever. While everyone else is chasing the latest model releases, smart businesses are positioning themselves for the attention economy that's emerging.
Want to stay updated on these critical shifts? Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly insights on how AI is reshaping business, technology, and society.
What's your take? Are you seeing this attention economy shift in your industry? Let us know in the comments below.
This analysis is based on current market trends and insider reports as of October 2025. The AI landscape changes rapidly, and this represents our best understanding at the time of publication.
