Musk tells that AI agents can cause 1,000 times more bandwidth use

Elon Musk of SpaceX told that AI agents can cause a maximum of 1,000 times more world bandwidth use in 3 to 5 years. Musk told this on the third-quarter call on 20 October. Each agent, a software that does tasks for a user, can use more bandwidth than a person. The estimate is the cause of the plan to add more Starlink satellites.

How it works

Musk connected the capacity target to about 100,000 satellites. The plan is possible only if Starship, the SpaceX rocket, puts the satellites in orbit at scale.

The numbers

• Starlink has 13.6 million consumer subscribers on 30 September.
• Connectivity revenue in the quarter is $5.25 billion, 69% more than one year before.
• Monthly revenue for each consumer subscriber is $69, less than one year before.

What is not known

The call gave no traffic share and no price for the added capacity. Gwynne Shotwell, the SpaceX president, told that the Starlink share of world traffic is important. The 1,000 times number is about world use, and the 100 times number is about Starlink capacity. Musk told that the next Starship flight in November can end in failure.

Insight: A seller of bandwidth gives the largest estimate

Musk tells of 1,000 times more bandwidth use by agents. Stripe tells that agents are a small share of its Link work. Meta tells that more than 10 million persons made an agent. Starlink is part of SpaceX, and the estimate looks like a cause for the satellite plan, not a count of use. Look for traffic data from the companies that use it.