If we think about foundation models as a new kind of operating system for AI, the possibilities become quite exciting.

Looking into the future, we can imagine the emergence of what I’ll call “intelligence value chains,” an ecosystem of products, services, and applications based on the pervasive use and availability of AI-based foundation models. We’re already seeing the emergence of specialized AI prompt stores where short pieces of natural language that efficiently query models to accomplish a task are being sold for a couple of dollars apiece.

This has two important implications for the future. One possible route is to imagine that standardized AI dialogue turns, consisting of a text-in/text-out exchange, become so important to business that they turn into a form of cognitive commodity. Not unlike a barrel of oil or a bushel of wheat, a cognitive commodity would be a standardized unit for AI services. From there, it’s not hard to imagine the creation of cognitive futures contracts to guarantee the future availability of AI services at a set price.

A second possibility, perhaps nearer and more concrete, is the emergence of an app economy for these models. This would allow not only prompts, but also a combination of prompts plus additional training parameters to plug into the model to produce new behaviors, in the same way that apps for iOS and Android can enrich our phones with new functionality.

If this market for customizing foundation models takes off, it might give rise to flywheel effects in favor of some models, which would garner more users because they have more apps, and more app developers because they have more users. (In effect, these models would become the AI version of Microsoft Windows or Apple’s iOS.)

It’s always difficult to predict how revolutionary technologies will shape the future. I believe this moment represents the beginning of a new era in software, with the industry likely to change more in the next five years than it has in the last 50. When it comes to enterprise-specific foundation models, conversational interfaces will become a primary way users interact with machines, on an equal footing with today’s point-and-click interfaces. Users will be empowered to interact and partner with their machines more intuitively, to create highly customizable and sophisticated workflows, to automate complex daily tasks, and to be more effective both at work and throughout their lives.