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Superintelligence Is Coming. The Fearful Will Miss Out.
AI companies raised more than $130 billion in venture funding in 2024 alone, according to
Dealroom. And that was before the superintelligence conversation went mainstream. OpenAI,
Anthropic, and Google DeepMind are racing toward systems that can outthink any human at any
task. Most people are still debating whether we should build it. The smart money stopped
asking that question two years ago.
What Is Actually Happening Right Now
In 2026, we’re past the chatbot era. We’re watching AI systems get tested on tasks that
used to require years of graduate-level training. According to the Stanford AI Index, AI
systems now exceed human performance on more than half of standard academic benchmarks. In
2020, that number was close to zero.
Sam Altman said publicly in 2025 that OpenAI expects to reach superintelligence within “a
few years.” Dario Amodei at Anthropic described AI systems that could compress “decades of
scientific progress into just a few years.” These aren’t marketing claims. These are the
people running the labs, talking to their boards and investors.
At the same time, according to the OECD, more than 60 countries introduced or proposed AI
regulation between 2022 and 2025. Governments are writing rules for something they can barely
define. Most of the public debate is stuck on whether this technology is “good” or “bad.”
That’s the wrong debate. And staying in it is expensive.
The Take Most People Won’t Accept
I’ll say it plainly. The superintelligence debate is a wealth transfer in slow motion, and
most people are watching it happen to them instead of participating in it.
Every major technology shift follows the same playbook. When electricity spread, the owners
of the infrastructure got rich. When the internet arrived, the owners of the platforms got
rich. When mobile payments spread across developing markets, the owners of the payment rails
got rich. Superintelligence will follow the same pattern, except faster and at a larger scale
than anything that came before.
According to Goldman Sachs, AI could add $7 trillion to global GDP over the next decade.
That money does not distribute evenly. It concentrates. It goes to the people who own the
technology, the infrastructure, and the businesses smart enough to act early.
The people saying “we should slow down” are almost never the people building the systems.
They’re usually people who haven’t figured out their position yet and are more comfortable
with the status quo. That’s a human reaction. It’s also costly.
Labs in the US, China, the UK, and the UAE are not waiting for the public debate to
resolve. If one lab stops, the next one accelerates. That’s the actual dynamic. So the useful
question is not “should we let it?” The useful question is this: given that it’s coming, what
position do I want to be in when it arrives?
For business owners running teams right now, the clearest first move is getting lean before
AI gets smarter. If you’re still handling payroll manually or spending hours on HR admin,
that’s overhead you shouldn’t be carrying. A platform like Gusto automates payroll, benefits,
and compliance for small teams, which frees up cash and attention for the moves that actually
matter over the next few years.
What This Means for You
Here is what I would do starting today.
First, stop waiting for the policy debate to settle. It won’t settle before the technology
changes the rules. By the time regulation is clear, the wealth transfer will already be well
underway. The internet debate wasn’t resolved before Google, Amazon, and Meta became the most
valuable companies in history.
Second, get your business infrastructure tight now. The businesses that benefit most from
superintelligence will be the ones already running clean, digital, and efficient. If your
team is still dealing with manual expense approvals or messy card controls, fix that first. A
platform like Wallester gives business teams real time spending controls and smart card
infrastructure, so you stop losing money on admin and start seeing where it actually goes.
Third, get exposure to AI infrastructure, not just AI applications. Applications will keep
changing. Compute, data centers, energy capacity, and the foundational model labs won’t
change as fast. That’s where the durable value sits.
Fourth, build skills that stay hard to automate. Judgment, decision making under pressure,
and relationship building will outlast most technical skills in a superintelligence world. Not
because AI won’t get good at them eventually, but because humans will still trust humans for
the highest stakes calls for a while longer.
Fear is not a hedge. It doesn’t protect you from the change. It just keeps you out of the
upside.
The Bottom Line
Superintelligence isn’t a question of if anymore. It’s a question of when, who controls it,
and who captures the value. The people most worried about whether we “should” build it will be
the most surprised when it arrives. I’d rather be positioned than surprised. The economic
shift coming makes the dot com era look like a warm up. Get in the game or get moved by it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is superintelligence and when could it arrive?
Superintelligence refers to AI systems that can outperform humans across all cognitive
tasks, not just narrow ones. Based on public statements from OpenAI and Anthropic leadership
in 2025 and 2026, the expected window sits somewhere between 2028 and 2035, though timelines
are genuinely uncertain and debated among researchers.
Is superintelligence actually dangerous?
The risks researchers discuss are real and worth taking seriously. But “potentially
dangerous” and “stoppable” are two different things. Labs in multiple countries are racing
toward it simultaneously, which means the practical question is how to prepare, not whether
to allow it.
How can business owners benefit from the superintelligence race?
The clearest plays are automating low-value work now, building lean and digital business
infrastructure, and getting exposure to AI adjacent investments. Businesses that enter the
superintelligence era already running tight will capture the most upside when the shift
accelerates.
Why does the superintelligence debate matter to my finances?
Because AI is already shifting costs and creating competitive gaps between businesses that
adopt early and those that don’t. By the time superintelligence arrives, those gaps will be
very hard to close quickly. The decisions you make in 2026 set your starting position for
what comes next.
What separates current AI from superintelligence?
Current AI systems are very strong at specific tasks like writing, coding, or analysis. A
superintelligent system would handle any intellectual task a human can, faster and more
reliably. That changes the economics of almost every knowledge work job and business model on
the planet.
