The AI bubble talk is coming from inside the earnings calls
The term “AI bubble” is gaining significant traction in financial discussions, with a staggering 740% increase in mentions during earnings calls and investor conferences from the previous quarter, according to an analysis by AlphaSense. From just nine mentions in 2023, the term appeared in 42 transcripts between October and December 2025, reflecting growing investor concern about the sustainability of the AI boom. Companies across various sectors, including semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and financial services, are now grappling with the question: Is the AI hype leading to a bubble? Executives from industry giants like AMD and Nvidia have publicly dismissed the notion of an AI bubble, asserting that the current landscape is fundamentally different from past speculative bubbles.
The surge in discussions around the “AI bubble” is fueled by unprecedented investments in AI technologies, with figures reaching into the trillions. Sarah Hoffman, director of AI thought leadership at AlphaSense, highlights the stark contrast between the massive sums being invested in AI infrastructure and the relatively modest revenues generated by many AI initiatives. This discrepancy has raised eyebrows among investors, prompting concerns about the long-term viability of such inflated valuations. Analyst Gil Luria points to “circular transactions” as a potential red flag, where companies like Nvidia invest in AI startups, which then turn around and purchase Nvidia’s products, creating a cycle reminiscent of previous financial bubbles.
Despite the pushback from tech leaders, including Sam Altman and Bill Gates, who acknowledge some “froth” in AI spending, the conversation around the AI bubble persists. Prominent figures in finance, such as Michael Burry, have even taken positions against companies like Nvidia, further fueling speculation. Analysts argue that the only way to quell these concerns is through demonstrable financial results. As Luria succinctly puts it, “There’s nothing they can say that will change people’s perception of whether or not there’s a bubble.” The focus now shifts to whether these companies can deliver the profits needed to justify their lofty valuations and restore confidence in the AI market.
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The phrase “AI bubble” has recently been in the zeitgeist.
Mentions in earnings calls and investor conference transcripts increased 740% from last quarter.
Only demonstrable profits will quiet the talk, analyst Gil Luria told BI.
There’s a bubble in talk of an “AI bubble.”
The phrase “AI bubble” appeared in 42 earnings calls and investor conference transcripts between October and December — a 740% increase from the previous quarter, according to an AlphaSense analysis.
In the third quarter of 2025, five transcripts mentioned the term. The quarter before that, four. For all of 2024, executives and analysts used the phrase in 24 transcripts total. In 2023, it was nine. (The analysis counted transcripts where “AI” and “bubble” appeared within five words of each other.)
Now dozens of companies across semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, financial services, and industrials are fielding some version of the same question: Is the AI boom a bubble?
At UBS’s Global Technology and AI Conference on December 2, AMD CEO Lisa Su told investors, “from the standpoint of, you know, do we see a bubble? We don’t see a bubble.”
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress similarly swatted the premise aside, describing it onstage as a “supposed AI bubble.”
Her boss, CEO Jensen Huang, said as much in Nvidia’s November earnings call. “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” he said. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”
Aixtron, a German semiconductor-equipment maker, was asked in its November earnings call whether customers might slow capacity plans if AI enthusiasm wanes. Coface, a Paris-based credit insurer, described re-running the math on big AI-related capital requests to ensure they hold up even if “bubble-type enthusiasm” fades.
So why the sudden spike?
Analysts pointed to the sheer scale of the numbers being tossed around.
“We’ve been seeing these huge partnerships and people throwing out money amounts for infrastructure — like trillions of dollars — which I can’t remember ever hearing before,” Sarah Hoffman, director of AI thought leadership at AlphaSense, told Business Insider. That gap between the trillions being invested and the billions in revenue from many AI efforts, she said, “is what’s getting people a little bit freaked out.”
Gil Luria, managing director and head of technology research at DA Davidson, said analysts and CEOs are voicing anxieties they’re already hearing from investors.
Luria pointed to what he called
“circular transactions” as one source of anxiety
. “Nvidia investing a dollar in CoreWeave, CoreWeave borrows nine, and uses eight of them to buy Nvidia chips,” he said. “That’s the echoes of bubbles past.”
The past eight weeks have given
bubble proponents plenty of ammunition.
Tech luminaries, including Sam Altman and Bill Gates, have said there’s some froth in AI spending. In earnings calls this quarter, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all said
they planned to increase their spending
on data centers that are the backbone of AI. Michael Burry, whose bet against the housing market was made famous in “The Big Short,” made headlines after
he said he had shorted Nvidia
, the world’s most valuable company.
While executives have pushed back on skeptics, Luria said that only cash will quiet the conversation.
“There’s nothing they can say that will change people’s perception of whether or not there’s a bubble,” he said. “The only thing they can do is show results, and those have to be financial results.”
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