“Follow the money” is the old catchcry on Wall Street and even at Royal Randwick or Flemington on big race days. In case you missed it, Artificial Intelligence is the new big thing! Not surprisingly, billionaires like Seven’s Kerry Stokes and former Nine supremo James Packer have joined forces to put their money into a US-based medical entrepreneur’s start-up business.

The Australian’s Damon Kitney tells us that the basis of this company called OpenEvidence is to “build the world’s best database for organising and storing medical information”. The company, founded by 41-year-old Canadian-born tech entrepreneur Daniel Nadler, has just achieved a US$1 billion (A$1.58bn) valuation.

This guy could be called a Renaissance bloke sporting a PhD from Harvard specialising in econometrics and renowned for being a bit of a poet and artist! His former company, Kensho Technologies, was sold in 2018 for US$550 million, Kitney informs us.

While Packer has put US$10 million Nadler’s way, more importantly, Sequoia Capital, a famous backer of start-up business, has invested US$75 million.

Not only does this indicate how astute Messrs Packer and Stokes are, more importantly, it shows how AI is the future.

Anyone who saw the Australian F1 on TV from a very wet Albert Park in Melbourne yesterday would have seen an advertisement with UK actor Idris Elba (star of the television show Luther) where he talked up the AI work at Aramco.

What’s Aramco? Their website puts their AI Hub on show but what does Aramco do? As the website says, “we are one of the world's largest integrated energy and chemicals companies, creating value across the hydrocarbon chain, and delivering societal and economic benefits to people and communities around the globe who rely on the vital energy we supply.”

This Saudi Arabian company was founded in the oil business and these guys know that AI will not only make them money in the future but will save them money.

Recently I did a speech on the future of the economy and business for the business coaching operation called Performance 7 that’s linked to the very smart Verne Harnish, founder of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (YEO), now known as Entrepreneurs' Organization, and the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs. Harnish also serves as co-founder and principal of Growth Institute and as founder and chief executive officer of Scaling Up. (Two books of his books, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't, are must-reads for aspiring business builders.)

In a room of about 300 attendees at Crown in Sydney, I asked how many business owners were using AI. Around 15% put their hand up. I predicted that within a year the number would be over 50%!

By the way, I’m not sure if OpenEvidence will be a ‘deadset’ winner. I suspect it will with Sequoia Capital, Stokes and Packer on board, but the real money-making message from this Kitney tale in The Australian is that we can’t ignore AI, either as a business builder or investor.

Locally, Betashares has an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) with the ticker code RBTZ, which is a Global Robotics and AI exchange traded fund that was up 7.8% for one year, 8.4% a year over three years and 10.7% a year for five years.

These ETFs buy into a lot of tech companies hoping to stab a big winner such as Tesla, Atlassian or a company like OpenEvidence (if it lives up to all the surrounding hype).

I’m not recommending this ETF or any like them because I don’t know your personal circumstances, but some of these ETFs can be interesting and diversified ways to follow the big money to cash in on a future that’s definitely AI.

PS: While these guys don’t always get it right, they sometimes do. Remember, $10 million to James Packer, whose net worth is reportedly US$3.27 billion is less than 0.3% of his total wealth. That said, following the ‘smart’ money can be a strategy we should always be alert to, if we prefer to be rich rather than poor. On my Join The Rich Club book cover, I borrowed the line from actor Sohpie Tucker that I’ve always loved: “I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better!”