Could Bringing AI Into the Physical World Make It Profitable?

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As businesses are adopting artificial intelligence and beginning to figure out how it will make them money, developers are already working on ways to embody AI in the physical world. From home robots to manufacturing and beyond, tech reporter Belle Lin digs into the industry’s plans and tells us whether physical AI might bring both makers and users the big returns on investment they’ve been anticipating. Alex Ossola hosts. Further Reading: These Developers Can’t Get Excited About Apple’s AI Efforts AI Is Here for Plumbers and Electricians. Will It Transform Home Services? Companies Are Struggling to Drive a Return on AI. It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way. Nvidia and Perplexity Team Up in European AI Push Apple Executives Defend Apple Intelligence, Siri and AI Strategy Meta in Talks to Invest $14 Billion in Scale AI, Hire CEO Alexandr Wang Apple Fails to Clear a Low Bar on AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.4	Hey, what's news listeners. It's Sunday, June 15th. I'm Alex Osloff for the Wall Street Journal. This is
0:38.7	What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories
0:42.7	in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening
0:47.2	in our world. On today's show, as businesses are finally starting to find ways to integrate
0:52.3	artificial intelligence into their operations,
0:55.0	developers are already working on future iterations of AI, including ways to embody the technology
1:01.0	in the physical world. But the question remains, can the developers or companies make money from AI?
1:08.0	One of the biggest stories in tech over the past six months is the huge investments
1:12.9	tech companies are making in data centers needed to power artificial intelligence.
1:17.8	In January, Meta said it was allocating up to $65 billion this year.
1:22.6	In the same month, Microsoft committed $80 billion.
1:25.8	And in May, a data center startup that works with OpenAI
1:29.5	secured almost $12 billion. These developers have big plans. They see one of the next steps in
1:36.0	artificial intelligence as bringing it out of the cloud and into the physical world, like consumer
1:41.4	devices and humanoid robots for manufacturing spaces. But will this future
1:46.3	phase of AI finally earn a return on investment for these users and developers? To dig more into
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