Meaning of picks and shovels | Babel Free

Definitions

The crucial tools or ingredients for a booming industry or enterprise.

figuratively, plural, plural-only

Examples

“By offering advanced AI capabilities, bridging proprietary and public models, providing secure storage solutions and delivering generative AI services, these providers of "picks and shovels" stand to play instrumental roles in shaping the future of enterprise AI.”

“They’re sort of a classic picks and shovels company that is making money by building the inputs to AI, but not actually training their own frontier models.”

CEFR level