The ECB warns: the AI bubble may burst and hit the global economy

The European Central Bank issued a warning: the rapid rise in valuations of AI-related companies increasingly resembles a bubble, and its collapse could hit the global economy. A regulator of this rank rarely names risks so directly — the statement itself means AI bets have become a systemic concentration in global portfolios.

The dot-com history is worth recalling: the 2000 bubble burst and vaporized trillions in market value, yet the internet did not go anywhere — companies without revenue vanished, while infrastructure and working business models stayed and grew. AI will likely follow the same logic: a correction punishes those selling expectations and spares those selling results.

For a business in Kazakhstan the takeaway is not "wait until it settles" but filter projects by payback. An initiative with clear economics — less manual work, faster replies to customers, fewer errors in documents — pays for itself in months and does not depend on the NASDAQ. AI agents that already take routine off your staff stay profitable at any share price; what deserves suspicion right now are purchases made "because everyone is deploying".