AI Investments and Ideas

Always had very strong intuitions about where technology was headed, but never did enough to express them. As an engineer, I felt — and still like the sound of — "the best way to predict the future is to build it."

But with experience, I realize: unless you have vast capital and an incredible team, you can't build everything. Still, the first step in the right direction is to express the beliefs — and the rationale.

So I'm kicking off a series about my "investment ideas", or what I call the Adya Investment Thesis.

Here are a few spaces of explosive growth I expect as of April 2025 — and how big they could get.

Ideas are cheap. Conviction, traction, and refined intuition are not.

🚀 The $1 Trillion Revenue Idea: Ads in LLMs (DoubleClick for AI)

I know, I know. But hear me out.

While it might seem obvious now, I've been tracking this since mid-2024. What's fascinating is the nuance of an incredibly powerful win-win-win flywheel between consumers, AI companies, and advertisers..

The core idea:

Ad Targeting and Personalization possibilities at scale have NEVER been this good. If you feel Instagram knows you well, wait till AI services catch up. With this comes tremendous willingness to pay and business and consumer value.
AI is expensive: bullish investor sentiment and consumer hype helped so far, but the value capture must scale too. GPUs and compute costs are real. Energy consumption by AI could double yearly, exceeding 0.2% of global supply soon. Thus, a Google-esque democratization of the tech is much in need.
People are willing to pay for performance, privacy, and control. Free "unlimited" tiers drive adoption. This is a proven monetization model to split value.

My bets: Unsurprisingly, as of Q2 2025, OpenAI and Perplexity are starting to move in this direction. But my money is on the relay/gateway players like OpenRouter, Kong and the likes. Significantly lower cost of operation, tremendous linchpin power - and trust on both ends of the value chain. Nice.

🎮 Faster-than-realtime-AI-video for building immersive connection: Rachna's Mission

Realtime AI-generated video and AR/VR will push immersive engagement even further. We just cant wait for it to start taking less
than 10 seconds to generate a 10 seconds of video... and eventually AR/VR.

That's why I co-founded Rachna — read more here.

What do we do?

Netflix meets gaming. You choose a fantasy experience — but not at the expense of editorial depth (Ridd's many sleepless nights will confirm).

Why did we build it?

To tackle loneliness.
Doesn't make sense? To us, it does.

I've followed Replika.ai, Character.ai, and others closely. They address loneliness — but with big executional and ethical gaps.
We believe true connection comes from shared experiences and relatable storytelling, not just mirrors or therapist bots.

The world deserves platforms that enable indirect expression, immersion, creativity — and a departure from daily life.

And our early data shows: People love stories.

🚛 The $10 Trillion Industry: AI Automation in Mobility and Logistics

(Yes, self-driving freight. And "Drone-dash". And autonomous farming.)

We realized 200 years ago that repetitive manufacturing should be mechanized. In 2025, the proverbial goods and services “production line” is not within the confines of a factory, or even a country. It's the entire global supply chain - and its ripe for full automation.
This is a $10 trillion idea.

This inspired my early drone delivery experiments in 2021 (see attached) - which, funny enough, never "took off" due to the proximity to national borders.

Today, leaders like #AppliedIntuition, #Waymo, #Uber, and newer players like Blade and Rotor are realizing this future.

🛠️ From Builder → Capital Allocator

The passion for building and intuition about the future cuts across everything I do: Founder. Sweat-equity investor. Advisor. Evangelist.

But where I aim next is clear: Capital Allocator.

Because ultimately:

Investment starts with our most precious resource: time.