Are we in an AI bubble? The question has been hovering over the entire industry for months, and there are weighty arguments to think that the answer is yes. However, also there are those who defend the opposite and there is powerful arguments in favor of no. In the midst of this debate, the CEO of Microsoft has given his own answer and it is neither yes nor no.
The question everyone asks. It happened during the latest episode of Fareed Zakaria’s podcast. The interviewer begins the conversation with a very direct question “Are we in an AI bubble and has it started to deflate?” Before letting you respond, provide some key information, such as that Microsoft has a 30% stake in OpenAI, a company that continues to lose money at a dizzying rate. “It feels like the math doesn’t add up and there’s going to be a moment of truth,” Zakaria concludes.
The answer. The Microsoft CEO begins his response by describing AI as “a new general-purpose technology that is going to boost productivity.” This productivity has to be seen in macroeconomics: in GDP growth, and not only in the United States, but broadly, throughout the economy. If that doesn’t happen, he admits bluntly, “we’re going to have a problem.” His most revealing line is this: “unless we see that broad economic growth, this movie is not going to end well.”
Beyond big tech. When we talk about the AI bubble we only look at the accounts of the companies that make it possible, but Nadella insists on the idea that the positive impact of AI must be seen throughout the economy, not just in large technology companies: “it is about each company in the economy, whether it is a small company, a large multinational or a public sector institution, whether they can see the real benefits of this technology.”
The problem. Nadella does not say it explicitly, but in his response he admits that this economic growth has not yet been seen. This fits with what the chief economist of Goldman Sachs said in March of this year, and that is that AI had contributed “basically zero” to US GDP. However, there are also analyzes that argue that AI is already generating wealth, but the problem is that the economic data is not reflecting it because We still don’t know how to measure it.
The prudent stance. Faced with this climate of uncertainty, Nadella opts for a more cautious discourse: he recognizes that there are warning signs, but rejects the idea that this automatically equates to a bubble about to burst. It is a position similar to that of Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, who at the end of 2025 spoke of there were “elements of irrationality” in the AI market. At that time, Nadella also spoke on the subject and said basically the same thing as now: “When we say ‘this is like the industrial revolution,’ we should have that kind of growth that caused the industrial revolution.”
Bubble? What bubble? Faced with this more cautious speech, we have others like that of Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, who is not that he does not see a bubble anywhere but that has come to say that calling this a bubble is “a blasphemy against AI.” It should be noted that SoftBank is the largest investor in OpenAI, so if there is a bubble and it bursts, they will be among the worst off. He is not the only one who thinks there is no bubble, analyst Ben Thompson also sees signs that there is no such bubble. We’ll see who ends up being right.
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