Open weight models, OpenRouter, Sakana Fugu, Engram, and company-specific data are five different ways of disintermediating the frontier models.
Unless these models become monopolies through regulatory capture, they have no choice but to move up the vertical stack — and they already are. Claude Cowork/Code, ChatGPT, and NotebookLM are all horizontal applications built by the frontier model companies.
Look at where the revenue is coming from: these are all application companies in your stack. They are all today mis-classifed as model companies. Models are just the path to building the app stack, otherwise the training investments won't pay off.
Great insights. My pushback is that these “apps” are mostly models plus workflow. Their value is overwhelmingly derived from the underlying model rather than a standalone application layer. Cowork, ChatGPT and Code feel less like true applications and more like specialized interfaces to the model for particular jobs.
Most apps are relatively thin anyways. As Satya Nadella says, app is a database with a bunch of business logic. That's it — a store of data wrapped in a layer of rules and workflow logic, with a UI on top. Tell me why these not apps.
IMHO - Its a fundamental attribution error that all of us are making.
Open weight models, OpenRouter, Sakana Fugu, Engram, and company-specific data are five different ways of disintermediating the frontier models.
Unless these models become monopolies through regulatory capture, they have no choice but to move up the vertical stack — and they already are. Claude Cowork/Code, ChatGPT, and NotebookLM are all horizontal applications built by the frontier model companies.
Look at where the revenue is coming from: these are all application companies in your stack. They are all today mis-classifed as model companies. Models are just the path to building the app stack, otherwise the training investments won't pay off.
Great insights. My pushback is that these “apps” are mostly models plus workflow. Their value is overwhelmingly derived from the underlying model rather than a standalone application layer. Cowork, ChatGPT and Code feel less like true applications and more like specialized interfaces to the model for particular jobs.
Chris,
Even the harness is not the model, its the app.
Most apps are relatively thin anyways. As Satya Nadella says, app is a database with a bunch of business logic. That's it — a store of data wrapped in a layer of rules and workflow logic, with a UI on top. Tell me why these not apps.
IMHO - Its a fundamental attribution error that all of us are making.