Citadel’s Ken Griffin Says Market Is ‘Almost Certainly’ in the Middle of an AI Bubble

Whether AI-Related Capital Spending Will Translate Into Real Profits Is in Focus

Anthropic IPO’s Success Hinges on Proving AI’s Real-World Necessity

After Once Calling AI ‘Garbage,’ Griffin Strikes a More Positive Tone

Ken Griffin, Citadel’s chief executive officer and one of the hedge fund industry’s biggest names, said in a Bloomberg News interview on Oct. 20 that the market is “almost certainly in the middle” of an artificial intelligence bubble.

Speaking at Citadel’s Future of Global Markets conference in New York, Griffin said there is broad concern over whether companies’ heavy AI spending will translate into real profits.

“Not every company in America has the same ability to create value through AI models,” he said. Companies will now begin looking at bills from Anthropic and OpenAI and asking how AI can actually improve productivity, he added.

Still, Griffin stressed that an AI bubble does not mean technological innovation has failed. Referring to the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, he said companies that survived on the other side of it went on to dominate markets decades later. He added that he wishes he had held on to Amazon shares.

On AI agents, Griffin said they could create new opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs. He described AI agents as a “bulldozer” filling in the pond of traditional management and operating models that had surrounded existing businesses. For entrepreneurs, he added, that could mark the start of a new golden age.

On Anthropic’s initial public offering, Griffin said its success will depend on whether it can prove AI models are essential across all industries. The Wall Street Journal reported that same day that Anthropic could spend an additional $750 billion over the coming years to secure more computing resources. Wall Street has recently raised concerns that Big Tech’s AI-related capital expenditures are excessive.

Griffin’s latest remarks suggest a more positive view of AI’s long-term growth potential than he had previously expressed. He has long been critical of the technology. Earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he called AI “garbage.” In May, at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he said thinking about AI’s results was “simply depressing.”

Lee Mi-a, Hankyung.com reporter mia@hankyung.com