AI is about to decide who stays rich and who stays stuck, and that is bad news for anyone who does not own assets before it happens.

• Once AI can make almost anything, people who own a slice of the economy will keep pulling ahead, while everyone else gets locked in place.
• The best case is a world where robots do the work and money barely matters; the worse case is a K-shaped economy where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
• Signs of that split are already here: the S&P 500 at record highs, gold at record highs, and first-time homebuyers older than ever.
• Gold is climbing because China and the US are stockpiling it as a possible backup to the US dollar.
• It is unclear whether this is the start of a major global conflict or an AI bubble about to burst.

Outlook: The next five years are the window to buy assets — stocks, gold, property — before AI freezes the wealth gap in place.