Goldman Sachs: Enterprise AI to Drive 24x Token Demand Surge, Industry Profitability Inflection Point Approaching

A Goldman Sachs report predicts the AI industry's shift from chatbots to intelligent agents will lead to a 24-fold surge in token demand, primarily driven by enterprise agents. This transition is expected to mark a critical profitability inflection point for the AI sector by 2026.

Thu May 07 2026

AI Industry Shifts from Chatbots to Intelligent Agent Era

According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, the artificial intelligence (AI) industry is rapidly evolving from simple chatbots to an era of intelligent agents. This transformation is anticipated to trigger an exponential increase in token consumption across the AI sector and mark a crucial profitability inflection point. Specifically, enterprise agents are expected to be the primary driver behind the overall growth in token demand.

24x Surge in Token Demand Expected, Enterprise AI as Key Driver

Goldman Sachs analysts project that by 2030, global token consumption will increase approximately 24-fold compared to 2026, reaching about 120 quadrillion tokens per month. A significant portion of this growth will be driven by always-on intelligent agents. While a typical chatbot consumes around 1,000 tokens per conversation, an intelligent agent can consume over 100,000 tokens daily due to continuous tasks like environmental monitoring, context reading, tool invocation, and result verification. The report estimates that by 2030, consumer agents and enterprise agents will each consume approximately 60 quadrillion and 56 quadrillion tokens per month, respectively.

*Source: news.cnyes.com (2026-05-07)*

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