AI bubble watch: Business and AI leaders are getting nervous about a bubble, report says

Turns out everyone kind of thinks there's an AI bubble.

According to a report from CNBC, top tech executives are worried about an AI bubble messing up their business.

Like other infamous bubbles — the dot-com bubble, the cryptocurrency bubble, and the housing bubble of the 2000s — an AI bubble could cause massive disruption to the wider economy. A bubble occurs when the price of something rises above its actual value, typically because investors become overly excited. And investors have been very excited about AI.

A recent report from Stanford University estimated that AI investment reached $109.1 billion in the U.S. in 2024. That's 12 times higher than China's investment and 24 times higher than the UK's investment.

CNBC reported that Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick, investor Michael Burry, and Picsart CEO Hovhannes Avoyan are all worried about a potential AI bubble. In fact, even some AI leaders are getting nervous.

"I think the evaluations are pretty exaggerated here and there, and I think there is signs of a bubble on the horizon," Jarek Kutylowski, CEO of German AI firm DeepL, told CNBC.

This isn't the first time we've heard about a potential AI bubble. In August, OpenAI's Sam Altman talked about his own AI bubble fears to a small group of reporters, including The Verge's Alex Heath, over dinner in San Francisco.

"When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth," Altman told the reporters. "If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing. Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited. Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes."