Cold Shower It’s a gold rush in the artificial intelligence sector, as companies large and small rush to stuff buzzy machine learning tech into their products, from Expedia’s travel chabot to BuzzFeed’s AI-powered quizzes. Whether it’ll pay off in the long run is anyone’s guess. But not all experts are so sure, with one analyst telling CNBC that he thinks generative AI is going to run into some major reality problems that amount to a “cold shower” by next year. “The bottom line is, right now, everyone’s talking generative AI, Google, Amazon, Qualcomm, Meta,” CCS Insight chief analyst Ben Wood told the broadcaster. “But the hype around generative AI in 2023 has just been so immense, that we think it’s overhyped, and there’s lots of obstacles that need to get through to bring it to market.” One key issue: any company that wants to develop its own AI from scratch — as opposed to licensing it from the likes of OpenAI — is going to need expensive computer chips from the likes of Nvidia and capital to service them. “Just the cost of deploying and sustaining generative AI is immense,” said Wood. “And it’s all very well for these massive companies to be doing it. But for many organizations, many developers, it’s just going to become too expensive.” Money Train In the interview, Wood also anticipated other factors leading to an AI slowdown, including governments around the world enacting new regulation of the tech. Adding to those woes, public hype may…Generative AI Is Headed for a Financial "Cold Shower" Next Year, Analyst Predicts