A month ago, I set out to answer a deceptively simple question: Is AI a bubble?

Since 2024, people have been asking me this as I’ve spoken at events around the world.

Even as Wall Street bankers largely see this as an investment boom, more people are asking the question in meeting rooms and conference halls in Europe and the US.

Some have made up their minds. 

Gary Marcus called it a “peak bubble.” The Atlantic warns that there is a “possibility that we’re currently experiencing an AI bubble, in which investor excitement has gotten too far ahead of the technology’s near-term productivity benefits. If that bubble bursts, it could put the dot-com crash to shame – and the tech giants and their Silicon Valley backers won’t be the only ones who suffer.” The Economist said that “the potential cost has risen alarmingly high.”

The best way to understand a question like this is to create a framework, one that you can update as new evidence emerges. Putting this together has taken dozens of hours of data analysis, modeling and numerous conversations with investors and executives.

This essay is that framework: five gauges to weigh genAI against history’s bubbles. — Read More