The patterns below are grouped by the choice each one turns on. Tap any of them for a plain definition, or read every business model, defined, on one page. A dark pattern has a full page of its own: what it is, how it makes money, what the filings show, how it fails, and our read on it. Each full page names one effect AI has on the pattern, and keeps it only while the record supports it.
Who pays
Who pays, and is the payer the person who uses it?
Archives become training data with a price, and software agents start to buy on someone's behalf.
What is sold, and how it is priced
Is the customer buying access, use, output or an outcome, and how is that counted?
Work done and results achieved become things you can put a price on, by the token, the task or the resolution.
Who does the work
People, software, partners, the customer, or an agent?
Agents take on work that used to need a person, so the seller can sell the finished job instead of the tool.
Where the margin comes from
Which cost line decides whether the model pays?
Computing power replaces labor as the big variable cost, and buying it early becomes a bet of its own.
How it finds and keeps customers
Where do customers come from, and what brings them back?
Answer engines keep the visit that search used to send on, and memory of past work becomes a reason to stay.
What stops a copy
Why can't a rival copy the model next year?
AI cuts the cost of copying almost anything, so what cannot be copied, like proprietary data, counts for more.
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