Artificial intelligence startups face rough financial reality check

Call it the end of the beginning of the AI boom.

Since mid-March, the financial pressure on several signature artificial intelligence startups has taken a toll. Inflection AI, which raised $1.5 billion but made almost no money, has folded its original business. Stability AI has laid off employees and parted ways with its chief executive. And Anthropic has raced to close the roughly $1.8 billion gap between its modest sales and enormous expenses.

The AI revolution, is going to come with a very big price tag. And the tech companies that have bet their futures on it are scrambling to figure out how to close the gap between those expenses and the profits they hope to make somewhere down the line.