OpenAI’s Bret Taylor seems to have ‘forgotten’ the company whose Board he is heading, says: AI is…
OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor has declared AI is “probably” a bubble, expecting market correction and consolidation in coming years. Speaking at Davos, Taylor—who also founded $10 billion AI startup Sierra—compared the current landscape to the 1999 dot-com bubble. Despite calling himself an AI optimist, he believes both “smart” and “dumb money” are flooding the sector, though he expects the free market to eventually determine real winners.
Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI‘s board, has stated that artificial intelligence is “probably” a bubble and expects a market correction in the coming years. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Taylor told CNBC that both “smart money” and “dumb money” are currently funding AI competitors at every layer of the tech stack.“When everyone knows that AI is going to have a huge impact on the economy across a huge range of industries and workflows, money is plentiful,” Taylor explained. He added that while he expects consolidation and correction over the next few years, innovation requires “that kind of messy competition.”Taylor, who also co-founded AI customer service startup Sierra, described himself as an AI optimist despite his bubble concerns. He believes the free market will ultimately determine which AI players have the best products and where the real value lies.
From dot-com bust to AI boom: Taylor draws parallels
This isn’t the first time Taylor has expressed these views. In a September 2025 interview with The Verge, he drew comparisons between today’s AI landscape and the late 1990s dot-com bubble. While many companies failed when that bubble burst, Taylor argued that “all the people in 1999 were kind of right” because the internet eventually created massive economic value through companies like Amazon and Google.“I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy, and I think it will, like the internet, create huge amounts of economic value in the future,” Taylor told The Verge. “I think we’re also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money. I think both are absolutely true at the same time.”
Sierra’s $10 billion valuation amid bubble warnings
Taylor’s bubble warnings come as his own company rides the AI wave. Sierra, which builds AI agents for customer service, raised $350 million in September 2025 at a $10 billion valuation—a figure Taylor himself acknowledged “almost seems quaint” given the growing number of $100 billion-plus AI companies.Before launching Sierra, Taylor served as co-CEO of Salesforce, board chairman of Twitter during Elon Musk’s takeover, CTO at Facebook (now Meta), and co-created Google Maps. His extensive tech industry experience gives weight to his predictions about AI’s trajectory and potential pitfalls.
