LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman to AI companies: Days of winning with AI chatbots are over, your big opportunity now is in ...

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman believes that the era of winning with AI chatbots is now over and that the next major opportunity lies in AI-powered medicine. According to a report by Business Insider, speaking on The Possible Podcast this week, Hoffman said that the investors should look beyond chatbot platforms like OpenAI and Anthropic and focus on healthcare, which he descried as a “massively larger total addressable market.” Hoffman further noted that the AI chatbot space already has dominant players which includes OpenAI and Anthropic, making it harder for new entrants to compete. “Now it’s the time for medicine,” he said, adding that while investors are “googly-eyed” over Anthropic’s revenue growth, the medical market offers far greater scale.

Reid Hoffman feels that AI can accelerate drug discovery

Hoffman who is also the cofounder of Manas AI, which a biopharmaceutical company revealed that the company is using AI to accelerate drug discovery. He described the company’s mission as building a “drug discovery factory for monopolies,” pointing out that new drugs often carry 20-year patent protections that can generate billions in revenue. He also stressed that AI can make early-stage research more efficient and reduce the cost and time required to bring medicines to the market — a process that can otherwise take over a decade.

Not a winner-take-all market

Hoffman rejected the idea that AI in medicine will be winner-take-all. He cited the example of multiple providers of GLP-1 drugs, each generating tens of billions in revenue. “It’s very possible to have a monopoly on your drug and have other drugs even in the same space be really lucrative,” he said.

Reid Hoffman has a 'reminder' for everyone on AI layoffs

Recently, Hoffman urged caution about the growing list of tech layoffs being blamed on artificial intelligence, arguing the AI label is increasingly being used to disguise more conventional drivers of job cuts, including the hiring excesses of the pandemic era. In a post on X, Hoffman wrote: "Just a reminder that we're likely to see more layoffs announced 'because' of AI –– it makes companies seem strong and moving forward. It's important not to ignore other factors, including hiring trends 2020-2023, that might be present."