Ken Griffin Warns AI Is in a Bubble but Sees Long-Term Winners

Citadel founder Ken Griffin said artificial intelligence is almost certainly in a bubble, while arguing that companies that survive the period could lead markets for decades. He spoke October 20 at Citadel Securities’ Future of Global Markets Conference in New York, framing the risks of excessive investment alongside the technology’s potential to reshape the economy. Griffin said major economic transformations are often accompanied by bubbles, pointing to the dotcom era as an example. His warning did not amount to a prediction that AI itself would fail. Rather, he said, some companies may not endure, while those that do could become long-term market leaders. A central concern, Griffin said, is whether businesses are getting productivity gains that justify their AI costs. He described companies examining bills from Anthropic and OpenAI and assessing which tasks require premium models and which could be handled by less expensive alternatives. He said corporate America has been uneven in extracting value from AI models. Griffin also cited an example from Citadel, where AI agents had cut some research work that previously took six to eight weeks to two or three hours. The tools,...