If it feels like you’re getting hit with a new wave of AI hype every single day—you're not imagining it. The pace of innovation is relentless, and the numbers behind it are staggering.
Since the launch of ChatGPT, according to Grok, an estimated $991 billion has been invested globally in AI:
And it's not slowing down. Just this week, NVIDIA announced another $100 billion investment—on their own.
For context, the only larger technology investment wave in history was the dotcom boom (~$1.3 trillion), which built the modern internet. What we’re witnessing now is the equivalent moment for AI—and it’s already reshaping the marketplace. Just take a look at the list of 20 AI announcements SMBs should care about at the bottom of this email, from just the last week!
After releasing GPT-4.1 for developers last week, OpenAI has now made their newest and best models available to ChatGPT users (except Enterprise and Education, which are coming next week). Here’s what you should know!
You may have used OpenAI’s earlier “o3-mini” or “o3-mini-high” models for reasoning tasks. Those are now gone—replaced with just “o3”. It’s faster, smarter, and more capable, with major upgrades:
For a quick example, I asked it to give me pricing options on purchasing a new vehicle for an electrical contractor—check out the results here.
OpenAI also released “o4-mini” and “o4-mini-high”—next-gen models that beat top benchmarks in reasoning, speed, and efficiency. “o4-mini” shows a record 99.5% accuracy on AIME 2025 math tasks, showing AI has now solved the math problem, and likely opening up tremendous innovation in science.
Together, o3 and o4 give you fast, tool-using, automatable, low-cost AI reasoning agents. GPT-4o is still the general-purpose model, but I think most people will end up preferring o3 for everyday use. It’s more consistent, more logical, and just more helpful. That said, OpenAI hasn’t published usage limits yet—so if you hit a cap, fall back to GPT-4o.
And here’s what might be the biggest shift on top of this: last week, OpenAI expanded ChatGPT’s memory. ChatGPT can now remember all your prior chats across sessions. That means better context, smarter follow-ups, and more personalized support over time. Memory + reasoning is going to be a game changer. You can manage or disable this in settings (only Plus and Pro users today)—but if you use ChatGPT often, it’s a huge step forward.
All of this feels like a major leap in AI capability. If you haven’t explored these models yet, now’s the time.
AI isn’t just a theoretical opportunity anymore. Businesses are already realizing serious benefits, and use continues to spread across every industry, job and task. According to TheresAnAIForThat, there are now 34,057 AI tools tackling 13,637 tasks across 4,990 jobs—and nearly all of them emerged in the last two years.
When I work with companies, I survey their employees: around 40% of employees are using AI already. If it weren’t providing benefit, that growth wouldn’t be happening.
Here’s a link to a great Harvard Business Review article showing the top 100 AI use cases. It’s worth a look if you are still trying to figure out ways of working with AI, or trying to decide if it is time for you to take it seriously.
Despite all this, when I speak with company leaders, I keep hearing the same thing:
“We’ve heard of AI. We’re curious. But we’re not sure how important it is—or how to start.”
Just yesterday, I met with the CEO of a regional creative and digital marketing agency. She asked whether now was the time to start thinking about AI.
My answer? Absolutely.
And I told her the truth: she probably has 12 months to figure it out and take advantage of it. Otherwise, her business risks being entirely disrupted.
That was a wake-up call. But in this climate, fear might be exactly what leaders need.
Creative work and digital marketing are among the highest-return areas for AI investment. And as companies start using these tools internally, many will find they no longer need external agencies to handle the same tasks.
Which brings me to my main point:
Every software platform you use now includes some form of AI. Thousands of tools are available today to boost productivity, automate tasks, and transform workflows.
But many business leaders still think of AI as an “IT investment”—something to slot into a 2025 roadmap behind cybersecurity, ERP upgrades, or hardware refreshes.
That mindset is exactly how Blockbuster and others got disrupted by the internet:
They treated a technology breakthrough as just another line item.
If you’re doing that, you may be optimizing for a business model that won’t exist in a few years.
In 3–5 years, your company will look radically different. Here's what that future likely includes:
To prepare for that, AI can’t be someone else’s job. It’s not just up to IT.
Every employee—from marketing to finance to HR—should be exploring how AI can enhance their work. Your role as a leader is to create the conditions that make this experimentation possible.
The best leaders will use AI to amplify their teams.
The worst will be exposed by it.
Just to illustrate the pace of change, here’s a quick recap from Grok of the top 20 AI announcements for SMBs—just from the last week.
Take a look. And as you do, ask yourself:
Who at your company is paying attention to this?
1. OpenAI’s o3 Model
2. OpenAI’s o4-mini Model
3. OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 Models
4. OpenAI’s Memory Upgrades for ChatGPT
5. Microsoft’s AI Skills Fest
6. Amazon’s Nova Sonic Voice AI Model
7. Moonshot’s Kimi VL Thinking Model
8. Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Enhancements
9. HubSpot’s Breeze AI Agents
10. Zoom’s AI Companion 2.0
11. Intuit’s QuickBooks AI Advisor
12. Shopify’s AI-Powered Product Recommendations
13. Cisco’s AI Cybersecurity Suite
14. SAP’s Joule AI Assistant
15. Zoho’s AI Upgrades to CRM
16. Atlassian’s AI Features for Jira and Confluence
17. Snowflake’s AI-Driven Data Cloud Features
18. Agentic AI’s Platform for Custom AI Agents
19. Adobe’s Firefly AI Integration
20. Midjourney v7 Image Generation
About Trent: Trent Gillespie is an AI Keynote Speaker, CEO of Stellis AI, former Amazon leader, and advisor on building AI-Native, AI-Enabled businesses. Book Trent to speak to your group or book a call to discuss using AI within your business.
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