I think the Occam's razor hypothesis is the stated one: economy looking cloudy, money getting more expensive. However, I'm certain LLMs are part of it as well -

I think the Occam's razor hypothesis is the stated one: economy looking cloudy, money getting more expensive. However, I'm certain LLMs are part of it as well - when you are the one writing the cheques you certainly do want to believe in a future where no more cheques need to be written while maintaining the same revenue. I suspect it is more likely that the benefits will accrue to start ups as they will not have so much inertia working against them in terms of leveraging AI. People with ideas and limited means will likely be the primary benefactors due to AI amplification I think.