Fears about artificial intelligence continue to shape market trends, with investors trying to identify winners and losers, becoming more selective. And so, in recent weeks, we are witnessing increasingly disjointed reactions These are resulting in sell-offs across entire sectors. Global software and data analytics stocks were the first to fall, followed by insurance companies, asset management companies, and financials. Big tech and transportation stocks fell on Thursday and Friday.
“The challenge is to understand whether these enormous investments, made more with the anxiety of not being left behind than with the certainty of a technological and economic return, will prove to be the greatest bonfire of wealth in history or whether the promised revolution will actually happen and to what extent,” explains Kairos Partners strategist Alessandro Fugnoli in the latest episode of his podcast on the 4th floor entitled “Everything revolves around AI. Massive investments awaiting revenue.”
Three trillion investments in artificial intelligence
In 2026, only two companies, Google and Amazon, plan to invest in artificial intelligence 385 billion dollarsIncluding other big tech companies from the stars and stripes it reaches 750 billion dollars. “Then, of course, there is China,” Fugnoli points out, who then makes some illustrious comparisons with the past: “The Apollo program to bring man to the moon extended from 1961 to 1972. It cost, in eleven years, the equivalent of 280 billion of today. He pulverized the previous record for spending on large enterprises, the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb at today's cost of 35 billion".
However, compared to the costs incurred so far, these figures make AI seem almost "ridiculous." This is also because, overall, approximately three trillion dollars have been allocated for AI which “will easily become you are by the end of the decade, with decisive implications for global GDP, the level of interest rates and stock markets,” warns the economist.
Doubts about the profitability of artificial intelligence
The question everyone is asking now is: will it be worth it? Will spending billions upon billions guarantee a return sooner or later? We probably won't have to wait long to get an answer, but Fugnoli seems certain of one thing: "If these massive investments revenues will remain as meager as they are today – he reflects – either the companies in the sector will understand by themselves that they have to slow down or it will be the markets, penalizing them on the stock exchange, that will force them to do so. One way or another, the fall in investment and stock prices will produce a sharp slowdown in growth, if not a recession.”
The question of profitability of artificial intelligence However, it is evolving. Many companies are considering introducing it and are already limiting new hiring to make room for it. On the supply side, on the other hand, products are becoming increasingly attractive. "The time shouldn't be far off when, perhaps all at once, buyers will enter the market. and will start to bring revenue into the producers' coffers of artificial intelligence", predicts the strategist, according to whom, "even wanting to be cautious and assuming a gradual adoption, the imbalance between expenses and revenues will reduce, while productivity, at the macro level, will continue to maintain a strong growth trajectory”.
In short, the bet is still open. "There are risks, even significant ones, but the basic scenario remains that of a strong boost to growth not only of the sector, but of the entire economy,” reassures Fugnoli.
In 2026, a shift from software to hardware and from spenders to earners
The Milanese economist, however, considers it "positive that the markets' uncritical faith in the future of artificial intelligence has given way to a balanced and selective attitude."
In his opinion, throughout 2026 "we will see a rotation from software to hardware and from those who spend, i.e. the hyperscalers, to those who collect, such as semiconductor or power generation producers”. This rotation will also have moments of excess, as is likely the current one, in which investing companies will be excessively penalized and will offer short-term trading opportunities.
“The money that the markets have invested in technology will remain in the sector, despite the internal rotations we have seen, but the new money will flow this year into more traditional sectors, both cyclical and value. This rotation will benefit European stock markets benefit, which will also be driven by spending related to rearmament. In practice, it will be a matter of staying invested and diversified with a leveraged portfolio ready to absorb the ever-present volatility associated with geopolitical risks,” concludes Fugnoli.
