Why Big Tech Is Building Infrastructure for Machines, Not People
Everyone thinks the AI infrastructure boom is about better chatbots. They're wrong.
Google just committed $185 billion to AI infrastructure in 2026. Amazon is spending $200 billion. Microsoft, Meta, Oracle — add it all up, and the five largest tech companies will spend nearly $700 billion this year alone on AI.
Wall Street initially panicked. Then they realized something worse: it might not be enough.
They're Not Building This for You
When you use ChatGPT or Claude, you make maybe 20-50 API calls per day. That's not what this infrastructure is for.
This infrastructure is for AI agents that will work 24/7, making 50,000 API calls per day.
The math is simple: Agents consume 1,000x more compute than human users.
Tokens Are the New Payroll
$300 per day. That's what it costs to run a capable AI agent doing real work.
That's $100,000 per year — approaching the salary of the knowledge workers these agents are designed to assist — or replace.
The Race Started
We're in Year One of the agentic era.
The $700 billion being spent in 2026 is the foundation for a world where AI agents do the work — not alongside humans, but instead of them for an increasing number of tasks.