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AI and the Declining Cost to Create
​

Ankur Crawford's Photo

Dr. Ankur Crawford;

Executive Vice President
Portfolio Manager

Patrick Kelly's Photo

Patrick Kelly, CFA;

Executive Vice President
Portfolio Manager

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into business practices is triggering a surge in innovation and competition. The evolution is shaking up established market leaders and may prompt a shift in business models going forward.

February 2026 Update:​ In July 2023, we published “AI and The Declining Cost to Create,” arguing that AI development tools would lower barriers to entry and pressure incumbent software margins over time. Since then, our thesis has been playing out, as the S&P 500 Software & Services Industry Group has meaningfully underperformed the broader index, suggesting the market is pricing in this structural shift.1 We are republishing this piece in its original form. While specific examples may have aged, we believe the thesis is materializing in 2026.

​A New Landscape for Innovation and Disruption​​​​​
As we stand on the brink of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven revolution, we are witnessing a shift in the world of software: the declining cost to create products, services, and businesses. In the near-term, we believe some incumbents will maintain pricing power with the potential for margin expansion by incorporating AI into their operations, while others may fall victim to obsolescence. As the cost to create falls, so should the barriers to entry, stoking competition as new participants contend for greater market share at lower prices. Over the long-term, this deflationary shift may undermine the pricing power and margin structure of the incumbents, altering the software industry and redefining the terrain as the outlook remains in flux.

Technological revolutions, such as the invention of the internal combustion engine or the internet, do not merely change the landscape temporarily; they create a new terrain altogether. Historically, pioneering companies that drive this disruption accumulate market share over years, blossoming in this reshaped reality. Borrowing insights from Carlota Perez’s model, technological revolutions progress through five distinct stages roughly every half-century. We believe the advent of AI has the potential to be a technological revolution and could follow this model (see Figure 1): ​
​
  • Irruption: A disruptive innovation, such as AI, triggers the emergence of novel industries, rend​​​ering certain traditional ones obsolete.2 Investors seem to not heed the perennial disclosure that “past performance is not indicative of future performance.”
  • Frenzy: Financial markets become excessively optimistic about AI and similar technologies, causing a speculative bubble.
  • Turning Point: Often marked by a financial market downturn, this phase heralds the transition from a theoretical promise to widespread, practical implementation of AI.
  • Synergy: AI is deployed at scale, culminating in a ‘golden age’ where productivity and employment rates flourish, marking the zenith of the software revolution.
  • Maturity: Growth decelerates as the market becomes saturated with AI and its applications, signifying that AI has become the new norm.​
The Lifecycle of Technological Revolutions

​Shrinking Time and Cost of Creation​​​
Historically, within the software industry the ability to create apps, content, and businesses was limited by the time and skill of human developers. We are now entering a new era where AI can code (i.e., software acting as a developer and writing new software), which will significantly reduce the time and resources required to develop products. As the time and cost to create deteriorates, we see exi​sting businesses and startups benefiting in different ways. For existing businesses, we believe AI integration allows businesses to become more efficient with fewer employees, thereby resulting in margin expansion. Below are a few examples since the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT1:

  • CEO of software company, Freshworks said, “software development that used to take anywhere from 8 to 10 weeks can be done in less than a week.”2
  • A study done at MIT found that participants using Chat-GPT were able to complete tasks 37% faster with a slight improvement in quality.3
  • CEO of Octopus Energy, a UK-based household energy supplier, said, “Emails written by AI delivered 80% customer satisfaction—comfortably better than the 65% achieved by skilled, trained people.”4
​ For new software businesses utilizing AI, the product development cycle has generally shrunk from years to months, effectively lowering the barriers to entry due to the declining time and cost of business creation. Through our research, we have found that startups have already begun leveraging AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate product development. Below are a few recent examples:

​
  • ​Midjourney is a startup established in mid-2021 that utilizes AI to convert text into high-quality images. With a self-funded team of only 10 people, it rapidly attracted a user base of one million within just two months.5
  • Google Duplex—virtual assistant introduced in 2018 - was estimated to have taken several years to develop. However, Google Duplex was later recreated in just two hours by two developers using ChatGPT, demonstrating the efficiency of utilizing AI-powered solutions.6
​​​ ​​A Shift Towards Value-Based Pricing​
​Generally, when the cost to create a business declines, the barriers to entry of that industry are lowered. This transformation levels the playing field for entrepreneurs, altering the landscape for incumbent businesses, as they must adapt. For software companies, conventional seat-based pricing, where price is determined by the number of individual users or ‘seats’, may no longer be effective. Consider an incumbent software company charging $25 per seat per month for an email marketing tool. With the cost-to-create being pulled lower, a smaller, nimbler competitor might create a better email marketing tool at a much lower price, undercutting the incumbent, yet still yielding a high return on investment, in our view.

As a result, this necessitates a shift in pricing strategies. As the potential for AI-enabled creation becomes increasingly available and the competitive landscape intensifies, software companies may need to pivot to a value-based pricing regime. This model prioritizes the value or utility that a customer derives from a product or service, instead of merely counting the number of users. This shift towards value could enable businesses to better reflect the true worth of their offerings and maintain profitability in the evolving landscape.
​
​​Generative AI Tearing Down Switching Costs
Many businesses are built upon the deep integration of software solutions, entrapping clients with the daunting task of transferring countless files from one system to another—making switching costs a key pain point.

However, we believe generative AI tools may offer a glimpse into a future where ‘switching costs’ could decline. Generative AI can be thought of as an agent that helps smooth the data implementation process, enabling seamless connections between applications in a fraction of the time. Without the need for lengthy implementation processes and additional personnel, the competitive moat of high switching costs should potentially fall. As such, we believe the declining cost of implementation will require a long-term strategic shift for all software businesses.

​​​​Near-Term Winners and Losers​
AI is quickly becoming table stakes for certain businesses, creating winners and losers across various industries. We believe the near-term beneficiaries will be the companies adept at integrating AI into their offerings that can charge for additional functionality that increases productivity, resulting in improved operating margins. A software company may be able to incorporate a generative AI feature that improves user efficiency, allowing the company to increase the price of their product, resulting in margin expansion.
​
​
Computational Requirements for Training AI Models vs. Moore’s Law


As more companies integrate AI into their business models, others may be caught in the crosshairs of this disruption. Specifically, we believe point solutions, which are companies that offer a standalone product or service, may soon be threatened with generative AI. For example, businesses that offer legal services may face severe cost pressures from nearcostless competitors. While entrusting AI in a high-stake legal case may be ill-advised, today, services like GPT4 may be able to draft better contracts than first year lawyers.7​ Instead of relying on a legal expert to start a small business, AI tools could facilitate the necessary documents and contracts at a fraction of the cost and potentially the time.

Semiconductors: The Most Obvious Beneficiary
No matter who “wins” in the era of AI, demand for computing power will continue to rise, given the computational complexity required to run AI-related applications. The amount of “training” a computer program undergoes can be thought of as the computing usage (compute) to practice and improve a program’s skill. Compared to Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years, the rate of AI training (i.e., the number of computations an AI program can process) is seemingly doubling every four months (see Figure 2). As such, we believe semiconductor companies, which have evolved into effective oligopolies with increasing pricing power, will stand to benefit from supplying data centers that are becoming AI factories.
​
Unanswered Questions and the Path Forward
As with any new technological innovation, the radical manner in which AI is permeating society leaves many unanswered questions. In our view, the world will undoubtedly look very different in a decade, with new businesses emerging and others becoming obsolete. As such, we believe margin structures may undergo dramatic shifts over the long term, as traditional revenue streams are disrupted and potentially replaced by innovative business models that are deflationary. There are some well entrenched businesses that will be net beneficiaries as they incorporate more efficient functionality and reap the margin benefits. However, others will be faced with an entirely new competitive environment where margins will be at risk.

As we navigate the uncharted waters of declining costs for creation and implementation, we foresee a re-imagining of business models, potentially unlocking new pathways for creativity and innovation, transforming the way we work and collaborate. At Alger, we are excited to embrace the potential investment opportunities ahead, as we remain vigilant in the coming revolution.




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​​​Sources in this paper​:
1Standard & Poor’s and FactSet. From 7/31/23 through 2/3/2026, the S&P 500 Software & Services Industry Group returned 20.4%, while the S&P 500 Index returned 56.0%.
2ChatGPT is an advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI. It utilizes machine learning techniques to generate human-like text, based on the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) architecture, which allows the model to generate high-quality, contextual responses.
3https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-coding-openai-ceo-save-time-ai-jobs-software-2023-5
4Noy, Noam, and Rui Zhang. "Experimental Evidence on the Productivity Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence." Working Paper No. 25940.
5https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-work-automation-octopus-energy-greg-jackson-2023-5
6https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/david_holz_midjourney/
7https://medium.com/@paulotaylor/google-duplex-clone-with-chatgpt-b817a6de162b
​8GPT-4 is the fourth iteration of the GPT series by OpenAI, renowned for its ability to generate coherent and contextually relevant sentences in a conversation or when providing text-based responses.
​
​
The views expressed are the views of Fred Alger Management, LLC (“FAM”) and its affiliates as of February 2026. These views are subject to change at any time and may not represent the views of all portfolio management teams. These views should not be interpreted as a guarantee of the future performance of the markets, any security or any funds managed by FAM. These views are not meant to provide investment advice and should not be considered a recommendation to purchase or sell securities.

Risk Disclosures: Investing in the stock market involves risks, including the potential loss of principal. Growth stocks may be more volatile than other stocks as their prices tend to be higher in relation to their companies’ earnings and may be more sensitive to market, political, and economic developments. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investors whose reference currency differs from that in which the underlying assets are invested may be subject to exchange rate movements that alter the value of their investments. Companies involved in, or exposed to, AI-related businesses may have limited product lines, markets, financial resources or personnel as they face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence, and many depend significantly on retaining and growing their consumer base. These companies may be substantially exposed to the market and business risks of other industries or sectors, and may be adversely affected by negative developments impacting those companies, industries or sectors, as well as by loss or impairment of intellectual property rights or misappropriation of their technology. Companies that utilize AI could face reputational harm, competitive harm, and legal liability, and/or an adverse effect on business operations as content, analyses, or recommendations that AI applications produce may be deficient, inaccurate, biased, misleading or incomplete, may lead to errors, and may be used in negligent or criminal ways. AI technology could face increasing regulatory scrutiny in the future, which may limit the development of this technology and impede the future growth. AI companies, especially smaller companies, tend to be more volatile than companies that do not rely heavily on technology. Investing in innovation is not without risk and there is no guarantee that investments in research and development will result in a company gaining market share or achieving enhanced revenue. Companies exploring new technologies may face regulatory, political or legal challenges that may adversely impact their competitive positioning and financial prospects. Developing technologies to displace older technologies or create new markets may not in fact do so, and there may be sector-specific risks. There will be winners and losers that emerge, and investors need to conduct a significant amount of due diligence on individual companies to assess these risks and opportunities.

Important Information for US Investors: This material must be accompanied by the most recent fund fact sheet(s) if used in connection with the sale of mutual fund and ETF shares. Fred Alger & Company, LLC serves as distributor of the Alger mutual funds and ETFs.

Important Information for UK and EU Investors: This material is directed at investment professionals and qualified investors (as defined by MiFID/FCA regulations). It is for information purposes only and has been prepared and is made available for the benefit investors. This material does not constitute an offer or solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction in which it is not authorized or permitted, or to anyone who would be an unlawful recipient, and is only intended for use by original recipients and addressees. The original recipient is solely responsible for any actions in further distributing this material and should be satisfied in doing so that there is no breach of local legislation or regulation.

Certain products may be subject to restrictions with regard to certain persons or in certain countries under national regulations applicable to such persons or countries.

Alger Management, Ltd. (company house number 8634056, domiciled at 85 Gresham Street, Suite 308, London EC2V 7NQ, UK) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, for the distribution of regulated financial products and services. FAM, Weatherbie Capital, LLC, and/or Redwood Investments, LLC, U.S. registered investment advisors, serve as sub-portfolio manager to financial products distributed by Alger Management, Ltd.

Alger Group Holdings, LLC (parent company of FAM and Alger Management, Ltd.), FAM, and Fred Alger & Company, LLC are not authorized persons for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 of the United Kingdom (“FSMA”) and this material has not been approved by an authorized person for the purposes of Section 21(2)(b) of the FSMA.

Important information for Investors in Israel: Fred Alger Management, LLC is neither licensed nor insured under the Israeli Regulation of Investment Advice, of Investment Marketing, and of Portfolio Management Law, 1995 (the "Investment Advice Law"). This document is for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offering of Investment Advisory, Investment Marketing or Portfolio Management services (As defined in the Investment Advice Law). Services regulated under the Investment Advice Law are only available to investors that fall within the First Schedule of Investment Advice Law ("Qualified Clients"). It is hereby noted that with respect to Qualified Clients, Fred Alger Management, LLC is not obliged to comply with the following requirements of the Investment Advice Law: (1) ensuring the compatibility of service to the needs of client; (2) engaging in a written agreement with the client, the content of which is as described in section 13 of the Investment Advice Law; (3) providing the client with appropriate disclosure regarding all matters that are material to a proposed transaction or to the advice given; (4) a prohibition on preferring certain Securities or other Financial Assets; (5) providing disclosure about "extraordinary risks" entailed in a transaction (and obtaining the client's approval of such transactions, if applicable); (6) a prohibition on making Portfolio Management fees conditional upon profits or number of transactions; (7) maintaining records of advisory/discretionary actions. This document is directed at and intended for Qualified Clients only.

The S&P 500 Software & Services Industry Group is a market-cap weighted index comprising software and IT services companies within the S&P 500. S&P 500® Index: An index of large company stocks considered to be representative of the U.S. stock market. Index performance does not reflect deductions for fees, expenses, or taxes. The S&P indexes are a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and/or its affiliates and has been licensed for use by Fred Alger Management, LLC and its affiliates. Copyright 2026 S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a subsidiary of S&P Global Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Redistribution or reproduction in whole or in part are prohibited without written permission of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC. S&P® is a registered trademark of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones® is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Neither S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, their affiliates nor their third party licensors make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the ability of any index to accurately represent the asset class or market sector that it purports to represent and neither S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, their affiliates nor their third party licensors shall have any liability for any errors, omissions, or interruptions of any index or the data included therein. Investors cannot invest directly in any index. The performance data quoted represents past performance, which is not an indication or a guarantee of future results.

Fred Alger Management, LLC uses the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®) for categorizing companies into sectors and industries. GICS® is used for all portfolio characteristics involving sector and industry data such as benchmark, active and relative weights and attribution. The Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®) is the exclusive intellectual property of MSCI Inc. (MSCI) and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, LLC (S&P). Neither MSCI, S&P, their affiliates, nor any of their third party providers (“GICS Parties”) makes any representations or warranties, express or implied, with respect to GICS or the results to be obtained by the use thereof, and expressly disclaim all warranties, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The GICS Parties shall not have any liability for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, consequential or any other damages (including lost profits) even if notified of such damages. Sector and industry classifications are sourced from GICS. Historical classifications use GICS categories available as of the date of this presentation.

FactSet is an independent source, which Alger believes to be a reliable source. FAM, however, makes no representation that it is complete or accurate.

The following positions represent firm wide assets under management as of December 31, 2025: Alphabet Inc. 4.2%; OpenAI Inc. 0.00%; Freshworks, Inc. 0.00%; Midjourney, Inc. 0.00%; Octopus Energy Group 0.00%.

Alger pays compensation to third party marketers to sell various strategies to prospective investors.

​ Fre​d Alger & Company, LLC​ / ​100 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10004 / www.alger.com​​ ​/ 212.806.8800
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