• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, 2 hours ago

Advertisers likely did not anticipate the sudden weekend calls for a voluntary artificial intelligence development slowdown by top tech executives, but spent the past year bracing for massive declines in traditional web traffic and ad monetization caused by AI.

A new forecast from Madison & Wall released last week predicts the global ad market will hit $1.3 trillion by year's end, and a forecast released in February estimates AI-powered buying platforms will manage 27% of U.S. ad spend by 2030.

Despite dramatic growth, Anthropic Founder Dario Amodei, OpenAI Founder Sam Altman and SpaceXAI Founder Elon Musk -- all visionary thinkers who have long been at odds with each other based on vastly different views of technology -- came together last weekend to warn the world about fast-paced development of advanced AI models.

It all emerged after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay on September 12, 2026, titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," urging AI labs to slow the pace of advancements, prompting rare public agreement from rival tech leaders Altman and Musk.

Amodei’s essay, published Saturday, described how the tech industry “must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” after the speed of development became “drastically faster” in the summer of 2026.

Analysts believe Amodei’s warning complicates Anthropic’s forthcoming Initial public offering (IPO). It has been called the largest pending IPO of all time.

The company was expected to file its prospectus as early as last week, but it has not yet happened, ahead of a deal which could value it at $2 trillion or more.

During the weekend, Musk wrote on X: “Dario is right,” just days after he derided public concern over an Anthropic researcher’s warnings that AI could result in human extinction.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, on Sunday wrote: "Any pursuit of superintelligence has to be grounded in the core principle that if the AI we build is not helping humanity and under human control, it's not worth pursuing."

Recent tests show AI agents with growing cyberattack capabilities triggered this sudden, unprecedented industry-wide correction, and that slowdown could certainly derail any plans created by advertisers, agencies and platform providers to slow down and focus more on safety and monetizing existing users rather than launching new capabilities.

Similar thinking from those three men also brought out more creative.

Ari K, who calls himself “a new wave storyteller/artist/speaker,” posted an AI-generated video on X, calling it “Life. It’s the real thing." The viral satirical parody is his version of the famous Coca-Cola commercial sung by the New Seekers on a hilltop amidst green grass.

"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," K's AI-generated video, features Amodei, Altman, and Musk in starring roles. “We’d like to buy the world some time.”

Advertisers face extended product monetization plans, and also could face a plateau in generative tools, and increased scrutiny on brand safety from governments and legislation.

Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, told Bloomberg Television on Sunday that the industry heard there could be a "pause" in May when Eric Schmidt, former Google chairman, was booed at a commencement speech. Students said they studied for a job for years, and now were concerned about what jobs waited for them.

"There is concern about the economic impact," Lee said, but it won't be forever because the infrastructure is there. "It's a step back in lots of steps forward."

Anthropic still plans to go public before the end of 2026, while OpenAI now targets 2027.

In an interview on Saturday with Fortune, OpenAI’s Altman said the timing is wrong, the risks are increasing, and the industry may soon slow itself down.

This all came to light last week when Anthropic published a detailed threat intelligence report that covers how people attempted to misuse Claude for cyberattacks, influence operations, surveillance, biology, and building weapons. It also described how engineers identified and stopped them.

“These cases are not typical: we’re highlighting some of the most sophisticated misuse we’ve seen,” Anthropic wrote. “But they’re especially important to discuss, because they show us where AI misuse is headed, where our safeguards work, and where they need to improve.”

The report published so others can spot the same activity on their own platforms, and so Anthropic can give humanity a clear view of how emerging threats develop.