The decline of AI

Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Eric Siu and Neil Patel

Careers, Business, Marketing

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/ Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire Neil and Eric break down the “decline of AI” narrative and why red growth charts for vibe coding tools like Cursor, Lovable, and Windsurf can be misleading. They unpack churn vs stickiness, unrealistic ARR expectations, and why enterprise coding revenue (especially Anthropic Claude Code) still signals strength. Using Ramp AI Index spend data, they discuss the momentum of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, plus why marketers are shifting from tool-chasing to KPI-driven fundamentals. They also review Granola AI meeting notes and why data verification matters. Key takeaways: -AI bubble fears ≠ AI slowdown -Enterprise AI adoption is the real signal -Verify AI outputs before decisions Chapters: 00:00 AI “death” chart debate 02:00 Data accuracy and enterprise revenue 03:18 Unrealistic ARR growth expectations 06:48 Data labeling and AI gold rush 08:04 MP Digital and SEO tools 08:21 Ramp AI Index adoption trends 10:48 Marketing shifts from tool-chasing 12:44 Granola AI meeting note-taker 16:45 Claude vs ChatGPT data accuracy 18:11 Verify numbers before presenting 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗟 Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. 🎙️ Learn More About the Hosts Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel 📩 Free Resources Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Ubersuggest: https://www.ubersuggest.com/ Answer The Public: https://www.answerthepublic.com/ ✅ Subscribe for Daily Marketing Insights!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I have a good topic for us to start with today.
0:01.6	Are you ready?
0:02.5	Yes. So this is the decline of AI to death of AI. So I'll slow down a little bit. So the decline of AI to death of AI. Cursor, which is at 500 million ARR right now, went from 62% growth to negative 18% growth in six months. Okay? That's one. Number two, lovable, 200 million ARR. They just hit 200 million, right? were like celebrating it one number two lovable 200 million arr they just hit 200 million right
0:21.8	they were like celebrating it on lincoln lovable these are vibe coding apps okay so uh
0:27.0	cursors more of id but lovable went from 207 percent growth to negative 50 percent okay now senior
0:34.1	engineers are look there's a chart over here which i'm going to show you in a second, but WinSurf down from 104% growth. Remember, they sold to, they sold the Google, I think eventually. They're trying to sell the OpenA. I remember that, $4 billion or something, negative 30%. Total category, 76% growth down to negative 15%. So senior engineers are like, see, this whole, this whole stuff is a bubble, It doesn't work, blah, blah, blah. But the bubble isn't actually popping because when you look a little closer, base 44 that was acquired by Wix, remember that one? There's a lot of these acquisitions, right? But they went from 950% growth to 1161% growth in the same period and then Claude code exploded to one billion
1:12.4	in revenue and it's not even on this chart right so this chart just chart over here you can see
1:16.9	I can't pull it up that closely but all you need to see is that it's turning red like lovable
1:21.6	is turning red the growth rates right um you can see cursor's turning red their data's off so
1:26.5	you look at all this over here and then people are just like, oh my God, it's dying,
1:29.8	it's dying.
1:30.8	But the reality is, no, like, I would say a lot of these people using these apps are pretty
1:34.2	promiscuous.
1:35.2	I'm pretty promiscuous.
1:36.2	Like, I'll jump over to Replit.
1:37.0	I'll jump over to lovable.
1:38.0	I'll switch to whatever.
1:39.2	I'll tell you about the latest tool so I think people are still experimenting a lot right now and I don't think these things are slowing down by any means I don't think
1:47.4	they're slowing down but whoever posted this their data's off because I know at least
1:51.7	one of the numbers for one of the companies you mentioned and I'm not going to name which
1:55.3	one and the numbers you mentioned are totally different than what their real numbers are
1:59.4	so whoever created this chart,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Siu and Neil Patel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Siu and Neil Patel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.