Finding DePIN In Search of AI Resistant Businesses
Parameter Research
The hangover from the 2008 Great Recession still lingers today, even after nearly 2 decades of relative prosperity. Its impact reshaped how many look at business risk, bringing this notion of “recession resistant businesses” to the forefront of our collective vernacular. While I was too young to experience the ramifications of 2008 directly, the downstream impacts on people I would eventually encounter professionally, left a strong impression about how economic tectonic shifts - regardless of their catalyst - reshape the world as we know it.
That takeaway feels more relevant now than ever, with Artificial Intelligence surpassing even the highest of expectations. It’s apparent that AI is currently creating a tectonic shift greater than any technological revolution or economic upheaval in modern history.
I am a staunch proponent of embracing this change; trillions of dollars in new value will be created - but it’s impossible to ignore the reality that many companies and people are on the precipice of being displaced. From software development and product design to finance and accounting - these AI models have gotten to the point where they can do the job of a skilled programer, analyst etc. with high precision and remarkable speed. What’s more, the quality of these models have progressed at a staggering pace - just look at the last 4 years of AI Will Smith eating spaghetti.
Given that AI is fundamentally changing market viability in real time, investors are grappling with separating winners from losers in a fast changing landscape. The term “recession-resistant businesses” that entered our lexicon in 2008 is now being usurped by a new one: “AI-resistant businesses.”
AI Resistant Businesses And DePIN
Infrastructure has historically been the overlooked constant of economic or technical upheaval. That dynamic is no different today. The most resilient businesses aren’t those racing to adopt AI at the risk displacement; they’re the ones whose value proposition exists independently from it.
DePIN projects represent some of the clearest examples of this principle in practice.
Take Helium, for example. The decentralized wireless infrastructure enabled by the network today, is a utility that the world will depend on regardless of AI disruption. Connectivity isn’t a feature, it’s a prerequisite.
Geodnet operates in a similar vein, providing decentralized RTK services that underpins AI-agnostic markets, like precision agriculture and drones for surveying.
Neither of these networks becomes less critical because a model got smarter. If anything, an increasingly automated world raises the demand for the physical infrastructure layer beneath it.
This is the distinguishing characteristic of a truly AI-resistant business: its utility is structural, not conditional. The question I find myself asking isn’t whether a project is AI-compatible, but whether it would matter if AI had never existed at all. For projects like these, the answer is unequivocally yes.
AI as a Growth Catalyst
Resilience, however, is only half of the equation. While many businesses are bracing against the risk of AI disruption, there are others where AI creates a direct growth catalyst. Identifying which companies or projects are impacted by the latter, is where significant investment asymmetry lies.
AI models are only as capable as the data that powers them. Projects like 375.ai sit directly in that critical supply chain, capturing the 80% of commerce data that exists offline, and has remained otherwise inaccessible for AI training. What’s unique about 375.ai in this context, is that capturing novel data sets for AI isn’t a prerequisite for their success - it’s simply a new vertical opportunity that expands their TAM.
This reality doesn’t stop at data collection. Compute is quickly becoming one of the most constrained resources on the planet, an issue further exacerbated by the growing adoption of AI. This positions networks like Akash to absorb demand that centralized providers are structurally ill-equipped to meet. Similar to 375, Akash’s value proposition exists independently from AI’s continued ascent.
This is the distinction worth reiterating: the infrastructure value for projects like 375.ai and Akash exists without AI, but their market value compounds directly with it.
Modularity In Times Of Unprecedented Change
What makes DePIN networks compelling in this conversation isn’t just their resilience, it’s their adaptability. DePINs are modular by design, enabling rapid pivots to meet demands not anticipated at their inception.
Conversely, centralized providers are burdened by rigidity that increases their risk of disruption: slow-moving procurement cycles, legacy architecture, and institutional inertia that makes rapid adaptation structurally difficult.
DePIN networks are the antithesis of this structural limitation. Their decentralized nature means capacity can expand, shift, and orient toward emerging demand without the friction that plagues their centralized counterparts.
This quality means that many DePINs aren’t just surviving the changes from AI, they’re positioned to serve it. The same modularity that insulates them from disruption is what makes them uniquely capable of meeting the infrastructure demands that AI is rapidly creating.
Final Thoughts
AI disruption isn’t coming, it’s already here. Just as 2008 forced a reckoning with economic fragility, AI is forcing one of widespread business viability. The investors who navigate this transition well won’t just be the ones that identify who benefits from AI — they’ll be the ones who understand which businesses remain indispensable regardless of its end state.
DePIN sits at a rare intersection: infrastructure that is resilient enough to withstand the disruption, and modular enough to compound directly with it. That combination is difficult to find, and even more difficult to bet against.