The Fifth Utility: When Intelligence Becomes as Common as Electricity

There are moments in history when humanity quietly crosses a threshold from one age into another. The steam engine transformed muscle into a commodity. Electricity transformed power into a utility. The internet transformed information into something universally accessible. Artificial intelligence is about to do something even more profound. It will transform intelligence itself into a utility.

That observation belongs to Philippe Laffont, the founder of Coatue Management and one of the most successful technology investors of the past three decades. Speaking on CNBC in June 2026, he framed it as the arc of the ages: the Industrial Age ran for a couple of centuries; the Information Age for the last forty to fifty years; and now we are entering the Intelligence Age, in which intelligence joins water, electricity, gas, and broadband as a basic service — flowing into every home and every pocket for fifty to a hundred dollars a month. The price of a phone plan, for extraordinary cognitive capability.

Pause for a moment and consider what that means. For thousands of years, intelligence has been one of humanity's scarcest resources. Nations competed for it. Universities filtered for it. Companies paid fortunes to attract it. Families sacrificed everything hoping their children would acquire more of it.

Now imagine if intelligence became abundant.

Throughout history, success often depended on access to knowledge. If you knew how to read while others could not, you had an advantage. If you understood mathematics while others did not, you had an advantage. If you had access to libraries, professors, experts, lawyers, engineers, doctors, or consultants, you possessed something rare.

AI changes that equation. Instead of asking, "Who is the smartest person in the room?" we will increasingly ask, "Who uses intelligence most effectively?"

Every student will have a world-class tutor. Every entrepreneur will have a strategy consultant. Every programmer will have an elite software engineer working alongside them. Every writer will have an editor. Every doctor will have an assistant capable of reviewing millions of medical papers. Every farmer will have an agronomist. Every small business owner will have an accountant, marketer, lawyer, and financial analyst available twenty-four hours a day.

Human intelligence does not disappear. It becomes amplified.

Perhaps the greatest promise of AI is not making brilliant people slightly more productive. It is making ordinary people extraordinarily capable.

History suggests that civilization advances whenever powerful tools become democratized. The printing press democratized knowledge. Public education democratized literacy. The internet democratized information. Smartphones democratized computing. AI democratizes expertise.

A teenager in rural Ghana may soon have access to the same intellectual resources as a professor at Harvard. A nurse in Ethiopia can consult an AI trained on the latest global medical research. A carpenter can design furniture with engineering precision. A mechanic can troubleshoot complex systems using AI guidance.

The barriers that geography, wealth, and educational opportunity once imposed begin to erode. Talent will matter. Curiosity will matter even more.

If intelligence becomes cheap, what becomes valuable? This is where Laffont's insight becomes profound.

Not everything can be commoditized. He names four things that will never flow through the pipe: judgment, courage, intuition, loyalty. I would extend the list. Integrity cannot be commoditized. Neither can wisdom. Neither can character.

An AI can analyze a thousand business strategies. Only a leader decides which risk is worth taking. An AI can explain every side of a moral dilemma. Only a human chooses which values to uphold. An AI can recommend the statistically safest decision. Only courage acts when statistics advise retreat.

Imagine two CEOs with identical AI systems. One inspires trust. The other inspires fear. One builds a culture. The other destroys one. The intelligence available to both is identical. The outcomes are not. Because leadership has never been about intelligence alone.

Education has traditionally focused on storing knowledge. Memorize formulas. Remember dates. Recall definitions. That model becomes increasingly obsolete when every student carries an AI capable of recalling virtually everything ever written.

Schools must shift toward developing uniquely human capabilities: critical thinking, ethics, communication, collaboration, creativity, leadership, emotional intelligence, problem framing, resilience.

The future belongs not to those who memorize the most information, but to those who ask the best questions. The value of education will move from knowing answers to developing judgment.

Many fear AI because they believe it will replace workers. History offers a more nuanced lesson. Electricity eliminated certain jobs but created entirely new industries. Computers replaced typists but created software engineers. The internet destroyed some businesses while giving birth to millions of new ones.

AI will undoubtedly automate many routine cognitive tasks. But history suggests something remarkable: human expectations rise every time technology advances. Once email became instantaneous, people expected responses within hours instead of days. Once smartphones existed, we expected information immediately. As AI accelerates productivity, society will simply expect more sophisticated work.

Jobs will evolve. People who learn to collaborate with AI will likely outperform those who refuse to use it — not because they are inherently smarter, but because they multiply their capabilities.

Countries have long measured power through natural resources, industrial capacity, military strength, and education. The AI era introduces another variable: who can most effectively integrate intelligence into everyday life?

The winning nations may not necessarily produce the most AI models. They may be the ones that deploy AI across education, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, government, transportation, and entrepreneurship. The competitive advantage shifts from possessing intelligence to organizing society around it.

And here lies a possibility that deserves its own dispatch: the nations best positioned to reorganize around abundant intelligence may not be the ones that dominated the last age. They may be the ones with the least legacy infrastructure to defend. That argument — and why Ghana has run this play before — is Part 2 of this series.

Every revolutionary technology carries unintended consequences. If intelligence becomes abundant, misinformation may become more sophisticated. Fraud may become more convincing. Manipulation may become more personalized. The same AI that helps diagnose disease could also generate convincing deception.

This is why judgment becomes even more valuable. Technology amplifies human intention. It does not replace it. The question has never been whether humanity can build powerful tools. The question has always been whether humanity is wise enough to use them.

Some compare AI to the Industrial Revolution. I believe the comparison is incomplete. The Industrial Revolution multiplied human muscle. AI multiplies human thought. That may prove to be an even greater transformation.

Imagine billions of people equipped with extraordinary cognitive assistants. Scientists making discoveries faster. Students learning without limits. Entrepreneurs solving local problems with global expertise. Governments making better-informed decisions. Artists creating new forms of expression. Doctors treating diseases earlier. Engineers building safer infrastructure. Teachers personalizing education for every child.

This is not merely automation. It is augmentation. It is humanity thinking together on a scale never before possible.

That is the question for individuals. The question for nations is different — and for nations like Ghana, the answer may be the most surprising part of this story. Part 2: The AI Leapfrog →

Sources: Philippe Laffont, CNBC Squawk Box, 23 June 2026.