Then there's the 3rd leg of the triangle. If a startup built with AI does end up going past the rest of the pack, they will have no technical moat since the AI provider or someone else can just use the same AI to build it.
A lot of startups are middlemen with snazzy UIs. Middlemen won’t be in as much use in a post AI world, same as devs won’t be as needed (devs are middlemen to working software) or artists (middlemen to art assets)
The economies of scale is what makes companies like Uber such heavyweights at least in my opinion
Same with AWS etc.
Most people use it for price, ability to get driver quickly, some for safety and many because of brand.
Having a functioning app with an easy interface helps onboard and funnel people but it's not a moat just an on ram like a phone number many taxis have.