UK AI subscriptions hit $1.3B as Claude's share quadruples in a year
Exponential View (Azeem Azhar) · rss · 2026-11-15
Exponential View #610 key points:
- UK paid AI market: 5% of UK adults now pay for AI, spending over $1.3B/year — up from 1% two years ago and 2.5% a year ago. London leads; users skew toward tech, finance, education and PR. Claude's share has quadrupled in a year, possibly tied to the improved Claude Cowork harness.
- Agent shopping is early: The author's Instinct agent nailed an iPhone Duo purchase requiring minutes-long refreshes of Apple's site, yet Uber logged only 4 of 320M Halloween-week rides booked by agents — simple frequent tasks stay app-first, while fussy, low-frequency purchases are the agent sweet spot.
- Wind + solar economics: Adding wind to solar-plus-storage cuts median cost from $105 to $86/MWh ($164 to $99 north of Milan/Montreal). Decade-long hourly modeling shows mostly complementary output except a week-long joint lull every four years. Ember: 83% of 750GW planned fossil plants sit where renewables plus gas backup cost under $100/MWh.
- Author's take: costs keep falling, robotics will unlock installation savings, but a renewable grid also needs cheaper capital and volatility-matching financial instruments.
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