The existing tech giants will just hoover up all the niche LLM shops once the valuations deflate somewhat.
There's almost a negligible chance any one of these shops stays truly independent, unless propped up by a state-level actor (China/EU)
You might have some consulting/service companies that will promise to tailor big models to your specific needs, but they will be valued accordingly (nowhere near billions).
Yeah, that's probably true, the same happened after the dot-com bubble burst. From about 2005-15 if you had a vaguely promising idea and a few engineers you could get acqui-hired by a tech giant easily. The few profitable ones that refused are now middle-sized businesses doing OK (nowhere near billions).
I don't know if the survivors are going to be in consulting - there is some kind of LLM-base product capability, you could conceivably see a set of LLM-based products building companies emerge. But it'll probably be a bit different, like the mobile app boom was a bit different from the web boom.
There's almost a negligible chance any one of these shops stays truly independent, unless propped up by a state-level actor (China/EU)
You might have some consulting/service companies that will promise to tailor big models to your specific needs, but they will be valued accordingly (nowhere near billions).