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Monologue: Everyone Suddenly Cares About AI ROI

29 May 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 19.947 Unknown

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-iHeart.

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20.602 - 27.972 Jonas Brothers

Hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.

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28.353 - 31.877 Unknown

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

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31.897 - 48.6 Jonas Brothers

We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but you know. Tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

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49.441 - 69.762 Unknown

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy? Not quite. On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Dave Attell to David Letterman help make you funnier. On this episode, my guests Bob Odenkirk and Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCullough try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazon Day be famous again.

69.978 - 79.689 Unknown

You know, people love alternate universe shows, right? Those are very big right now. What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular?

80.71 - 88.639 Jonas Brothers

Well, and they could travel the land doing meet and greets and solving crimes.

88.659 - 108.073 Unknown

They're constantly needed at malls. Either for signings or because that's where a murder took place. Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends from iHeart Media and Big Money Players. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

109.295 - 131.547 Unknown

Your 20s can be so exciting, but they can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the psychology of your 20s is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face. I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks and just the first one in, the last one out, and I ended up burning out.

Chapter 2: What recent changes in AI billing practices are causing concern?

633.088 - 651.99 Ed Zitron

OpenAI, broken business as well, but there's no real solution here. It's done. And I think the next three months are going to be illuminating and probably feature pullback across a ton of organizations as they ask questions they should have been asking since fucking 2023. It's insane. I was mad.

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652.01 - 674.21 Ed Zitron

I would, as I sound completely insane myself, as I sound completely crazed, but people were calling me crazy in 2024 being like, yeah, you know, when businesses pay the real cost, they're not gonna, people were acting like I was a fucking lunatic. Well, who's crazy now? Would a crazy person laugh like this? Anyway, There are no real solutions here, though. Folks, there are no real solutions.

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674.59 - 692.826 Ed Zitron

While somebody theoretically could move their workloads to DeepSeek or a cheaper model, it's unlikely that there are inference providers that can support that much traffic or even provide that much stability. You have to remember, a big organization is putting a lot more pressure on DeepSeek than, say, a casual coder, someone who's just running their own GPU.

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693.307 - 707.642 Ed Zitron

And you have to do far more than just turn on GPUs. You actually have to build for an organization that would be theoretically spending millions. A massive inference stack that cannot crap out. It's one of the reasons people pay Anthropic and OpenAI, even though Anthropic's barely stable.

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708.603 - 720.698 Ed Zitron

I also don't have any substantive proof that DeepSeek V4 or other models can replace an Opus or Codex model, even if they are dramatically cheaper.

Chapter 3: How are companies currently measuring AI ROI?

720.998 - 735.883 Ed Zitron

We have no proof of this, and despite the conversation, no one's doing it. Not heard it. Not heard anyone say this. Also, in the end, if nobody can measure the ROI of AI in general, why would they spend anything?

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735.903 - 757.158 Ed Zitron

Now, AI boosters are currently either completely ignoring this subject, which is what's happening with the obvious ones, or they're going to answer by saying that we're in the early days and that there are weekly breakthroughs that will solve these problems. Been a lot of fucking weeks so far. I mean, a lot of them. What, like 400 of them? 450 coming up in 500 weeks?

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757.9 - 777.659 Ed Zitron

But this is a problem that needed to be solved yesterday, and neither Anthropic nor OpenAI has an answer for bringing down costs, let alone those of their customers, even if they were magically profitable overnight. Even if they were, they're not. They're not profitable in inference. Their customers are spending too much money. Their customers do not have cost control.

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778.08 - 797.608 Ed Zitron

That makes it very hard to budget for how much you'll spend. Basic business stuff. Basic stuff. I'm not innovative in my thinking here. You know, it's like that tweet that was like, yeah, walking around a college campus, looking into a business school class, and it's like, profit is revenue minus costs.

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798.108 - 821.83 Ed Zitron

It really is that, except these people have been ignoring that for years and making people feel stupid for asking those questions. I also must be clear that these companies cannot slow down. Anthropic and OpenAI project to have over $350 billion in combined annual revenue by 2030, and they're going to need it because between them they've made over $1.1 trillion in compute commitments.

821.81 - 842.094 Ed Zitron

If their revenue growth is entirely based on dimwitted executives allowing a no-IT-loads-refused compute dump for no apparent return on investment, that is not a stable, sustainable, or even a growth business. It's a grift targeting a society-wide executive ignorance of production itself. I look forward to telling you more about it next week. I've had a lot of fun this week.

842.214 - 852.209 Ed Zitron

We've got Paul Kudrowski coming back on the show on Tuesday. Actually, Wednesday. Sorry, 12 a.m. ET Wednesday. I should really know that by now. It's been years. And then, yeah, I'll have another monologue for you.

Chapter 4: What challenges do businesses face in justifying AI costs?

852.47 - 855.394 Ed Zitron

It's been a lot of fun. I hope you're enjoying it. Zitron out.

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861.905 - 869.426 Unknown

Number one hits, millions of records sold, awards, sold out tours. You think the Jonas Brothers are satisfied? Nope. It's podcast time.

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869.486 - 872.836 Jonas Brothers

We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

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873.076 - 876.927 Unknown

Hey Jonas is available now and their first guest is a big one, Paul Rudd.

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876.907 - 881.178 Jonas Brothers

You know, Steve Carell is a great singer. Can you tell you not to audition at the office or something?

881.258 - 896.967 Unknown

I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to me, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy? Not quite.

897.427 - 918.569 Unknown

On Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Dave Attell to David Letterman help make you funnier. On this episode, my guests Bob Odenkirk and Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCullough try and help the Kazoo Kid and Tazon Day be famous again. You know, people love alternate universe shows, right? Those are very big right now.

918.769 - 923.495 Unknown

What if there's an alternate universe show where you guys are incredibly popular?

924.517 - 932.407 Jonas Brothers

Well, and they could travel the land doing meet and greets and solving crimes.

Chapter 5: Why are traditional metrics failing to capture AI's effectiveness?

969.078 - 988.598 Unknown

I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks and just the first one in, the last one out, and I ended up burning out. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase, out of my skin, and I just really regret not living in the present more. You don't need to have everything figured out right now. You just need to understand yourself a little bit better.

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988.939 - 1000.923 Unknown

Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us.

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1001.364 - 1010.753 Jonas Brothers

From iHeart Podcasts, Saigon. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart.

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1010.773 - 1019.102 Unknown

This is for Vietnam. They're pouring petrol all over here. Freedom for Vietnam! There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything.

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1019.382 - 1025.308 Jonas Brothers

Listen to Saigon on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1025.508 - 1029.679 Unknown

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

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