AI gets blamed for the next recession

I think a recession's coming, and AI is going to get the blame.

In October, the IMF modelled the AI boom unwinding, with American shares down 20%. The IMF doesn't think that alone would tip the world into recession.

I'm watching something older. Phil Anderson traced two hundred years of property and banking and found a boom and bust roughly every eighteen years, about fourteen up and four down. The last bottom was around 2012, which puts the peak about now.

Plenty of economists don't buy it, and nobody can call the date. If he's right, though, the cycle is the cause and AI is only the trigger.

When money gets tight, your customers keep paying for whatever saves them money, makes them money or stops them losing it. Work out which of those you do, and start saying it while people are still listening.

Harvard Business Review studied 4,700 companies across three recessions. The ones most likely to pull ahead cut costs by running the business better and kept investing in growth, marketing included.

AI earns its keep there, taking cost out so you can keep getting found.

If the recession never comes, you're still running a leaner business.