What if the biggest opportunity in AI has less to do with automation and more to do with what people can create? Mark Zuckerberg believes superintelligence could put extraordinary capabilities into the hands of millions, giving individuals and smaller teams the chance to build products, test ideas and enter markets that once required serious capital and resources.

As AI becomes easier to access, the advantage could become less about who has the biggest budget and more about who knows what to do with the tools available, opening up a new era of opportunity for businesses.

Put power in the hands of people

The first principle is that progress happens when people have the tools to act on their ideas. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in history did not begin inside large institutions. They came from people experimenting, testing and building with whatever they had available. His argument is that AI could dramatically expand the number of people capable of doing that.

For years, access to capability has been expensive. Starting a company meant finding funding, hiring people, buying software and building infrastructure. AI is steadily lowering the cost of many of those things. A small team can now research a market, build a prototype, create a brand, analyse customers, write code and test ideas at a speed that would have been difficult to imagine even a few years ago.

Zuckerberg predicts that people will be able to create businesses and products without first having to raise significant capital or build large teams. Not only will companies become more efficient, but that we see many more ideas and businesses as a result, creating a more entrepreneurial economy.

‘Putting power in people’s hands to pursue their own aspirations is how humanity has made the most progress.‘

Mark Zuckerberg Founder and Chief Executive Meta Platforms

From automation to Invention

The second idea is that invention should matter more than automation. Automation is useful, as it saves time, reduces repetitive work and improves efficiency, however, there is a limit to how much value can be created by simply making today’s processes faster.

Superintelligence can help people develop new products, improve businesses and explore ideas that would previously have been too expensive or difficult to test. Any user or business using AI should then consider whether it is being used to do more of the same, or whether it is being used to do something that could not be done before.

A company that uses AI to reduce the time spent writing reports may become more efficient, but a company that uses it to discover an entirely new product, enter a new market or test ten ideas instead of one could create something much more valuable.

When small teams can build big

One of the most exciting implications is what this could mean for company building. Zuckerberg suggests that we could see more businesses operated by relatively small teams, supported by personal AI agents capable of handling a much wider range of work. He even points towards a future of one-person product studios, experience designers and highly specialised businesses that would have been difficult to operate previously.

That does not necessarily mean fewer businesses or fewer opportunities. It could actually mean the opposite. If the cost of turning an idea into something real falls dramatically, more people can afford to try. More ideas get tested, more products reach the market, more niche businesses become commercially viable.

Some of the next interesting companies may therefore look very different from the companies we know today. They may be smaller, faster and built around one person’s expertise, supported by an increasingly capable collection of AI tools. The founder does not need to know everything, but they do need to know what is worth building, which ideas are worth pursuing and how to bring the right people around them.

AI can give more people extraordinary capabilities, but it does not automatically give them good judgement. That may become one of the most valuable human skills of all. Companies do not need the biggest AI budgets, but they should be considering creating a culture where people are encouraged to experiment, test ideas quickly and actually do something with what the technology gives them.

If people can use AI to become more capable, learn new skills and create new products and services, then the economy can generate new areas of work alongside the jobs that change. Technology has repeatedly changed the type of work people do. Entire professions have disappeared while entirely new ones have emerged. There were no app developers, social media creators or data centre operators a generation ago, and Zuckerberg expects AI to create another wave of roles that are difficult to predict, even today.

“Invention, not automation, will be the greatest contribution of superintelligence.“

Mark Zuckerberg Founder and Chief Executive Meta Platforms

Power works differently when everyone has it

The usual assumption is that a powerful technology gets safer the fewer people who have it, although Mark suggests otherwise. His reasoning is that power is healthier when different people and institutions can challenge, compete with and balance one another. For example, give one individual a superintelligent AI lawyer and they may just start winning cases they should have lost, although, give everybody one, and the courts become a much faster and fairer place.

Cybersecurity works the same way, one party holding the most advanced capability alone could break into almost any system in the world, but if everyone had access to this it means every weakness would be found and systems would be built around it. It is a provocative idea because much of the AI safety conversation focuses on controlling access.

Safety, it seems, comes from balance in the system. Many systems, owned by people who want different things, keep each other honest in the way markets and democracies already do.

The next business move

There is plenty to debate around Zuckerberg’s vision for superintelligence, particularly around how quickly these developments will happen and how they should be managed. The more useful takeaway for businesses, however, is the opportunity created when powerful tools become widely accessible. AI can give smaller teams the ability to research, create, test and launch at a scale that once required significant resources, while giving established businesses the chance to explore new products, markets and ideas much faster.

That puts a greater value on curiosity, judgement and the willingness to experiment. As AI continues to improve, having access to the technology will become less of an advantage because more businesses will have access to the same systems. What matters is what a company chooses to do with them, from the questions it asks to the opportunities it is willing to pursue.