This time of year, I meet with my clients to review everything that’s going on in their lives related to their money. In those conversations, I notice common topics and concerns. Today, a central theme has been artificial intelligence. How could it not be? It’s been the primary driver of this year’s surprisingly strong market. And, unsurprisingly, it’s also driving a lot of talk of a bubble-in-the-making.
In my view, the focus on — and the optimism about — AI is deserved. We can all see how it’s being adopted by businesses and changing the way people do their work. Good or bad, nobody is going to put this genie back in the bottle. But, when I think about AI, I envision a number of “circles” and, frankly, none of them are easy to square.
After years of watching the tech giants stockpile enormous amounts of cash, we’re now seeing them pour their profits into AI investments. They are building out huge data centers and buying every Nvidia chip they can get their hands on. And, in turn, Nvidia is now turning around and investing in the very AI companies that rely on their chips. The story is getting quite complex, and it’s highly circular.
It’s becoming clearer that the next phase of the AI investment cycle — the big money that’ll be needed to build these sprawling data centers we all see in the news — will require more than just the tech companies’ current cash flow. The use of debt, especially off-balance-sheet debt, might weaken things to the breaking point if the AI-revolution pauses for one moment too long.
This brings me to my next circle. I think AI is already replacing workers. We might not see it explicitly, but it’s no doubt happening in both large and small businesses. If this picks up pace — and the tech companies are doing their very best on that front — it begs a fundamental question. Who exactly is going to buy the products and services these efficient businesses produce? Even Henry Ford understood this basic economic formula a century ago.
At some point, policymakers will need to confront this economic math. If profits increasingly flow to a shrinking set of massive tech companies and even small business owners who need fewer human workers, society will need to get creative. The concept of basic universal income won’t be just about fairness. It’ll be about economic sustainability. Unless I’ve missed it, I just don’t see any prominent politicians talking about how to square this particular circle at all.
Now, back to my recent client meetings — where these big picture concerns actually matter — I’m increasingly focused on just how much AI is impacting their money. For example, are you aware that just 10 gigantic companies now make up nearly 40% of the entire value of the S&P 500? Owning that one index fund simply doesn’t diversify things like it once did. Bottom-line, while there is no way around AI, we certainly can and must deal with it.