AI boom creates 498 unicorns worth $2.7T in unprecedented wealth creation

Artificial intelligence startups have created dozens of new billionaires in 2025, generating wealth at an unprecedented scale and speed that surpasses previous tech booms. This AI-driven wealth creation spree now includes 498 AI unicorns valued at a combined $2.7 trillion, with 100 of these billion-dollar companies founded since 2023 alone, marking what researchers call the fastest wealth accumulation in over a century of economic data.

The big picture: The current AI boom is creating personal wealth on a scale that makes previous tech waves look modest, with combined effects from soaring private company valuations, public AI stock prices, and massive payouts for AI engineers.

• “Going back over 100 years of data, we have never seen wealth created at this size and speed,” said Andrew McAfee, principal researcher at MIT, a leading technology research university.
• There are now more than 1,300 AI startups with valuations exceeding $100 million, according to CB Insights, a market research firm.

Key wealth creation examples: Several high-profile fundraising rounds have minted new billionaires and pushed valuations to record levels.

• Mira Murati, former OpenAI executive, launched Thinking Machines Lab in February and raised $2 billion in July—the largest seed round in history—giving her company a $12 billion valuation.
• Anthropic AI is reportedly in talks to raise $5 billion at a $170 billion valuation, nearly triple its March valuation, likely making CEO Dario Amodei and six other founders multibillionaires.
• Anysphere jumped from a $9.9 billion valuation in June to reportedly being offered $18-20 billion just weeks later, potentially making 25-year-old founder Michael Truell a billionaire.

The liquidity challenge: Most AI wealth remains locked in private companies, unlike the dot-com boom when companies went public more readily.

• AI startups can stay private longer thanks to constant investment from venture capital funds, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices.
• However, secondary markets are expanding to provide liquidity, with structured secondary sales and tender offers becoming widespread.
• There have been 73 liquidity events—including mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, and corporate majority stakes—since 2023, according to CB Insights.

Geographic concentration: The AI wealth surge is heavily centered in the San Francisco Bay Area, echoing the dot-com era’s regional dynamics.

• Silicon Valley companies raised more than $35 billion in venture funding last year, according to the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies.
• San Francisco now has 82 billionaires compared to New York’s 66, according to New World Wealth and Henley & Partners, wealth research firms.
• The Bay Area’s millionaire population has doubled over the past decade, while New York’s grew 45%.

What wealth managers are saying: Traditional wealth management firms are positioning themselves to capture AI fortunes as they become more liquid.

• “I would say a much higher percentage of the ultimate wealth being created is illiquid,” said Simon Krinsky, executive managing director at Pathstone, a wealth management firm.
• Krinsky predicts AI entrepreneurs will initially invest in similar tech companies through their networks, then eventually seek diversification and professional wealth management services, following the same pattern as dot-com millionaires in the 1990s.

Looking ahead: The AI wealth creation trend shows potential to disrupt traditional wealth management as these fortunes become liquid.

• Many AI entrepreneurs are expected to use their capital and skills to reinvent wealth management, similar to how Netscape founder Jim Clark helped launch MyCFO in response to traditional banking.
• “After people were beaten up or bruised up in the early 2000s, they came around to appreciating some degree of diversification and maybe hiring a professional manager to protect them from themselves,” Krinsky said.