OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks that the billions of dollars invested in AI now could create a bubble similar to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s.
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” Altman said at a recent dinner, per The Verge. “Smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth.”
The data shows that AI startups are the focus of more funding now than ever. According to PitchBook, AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of 2025, which was almost as much as the total amount raised by all startups in 2024. PitchBook found that almost two in three U.S. venture funding dollars went to AI startups this year, higher than 49% of funds last year.
Related: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says Older Workers Need to Embrace AI — or Face Losing Their Jobs
Altman noted that AI startup valuations have now reached “insane” heights, as startups raise hundreds of millions of dollars with just an idea, signaling a bubble, per CNBC.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
OpenAI is an example of a company that has raised billions of dollars to fuel its AI efforts. In March, the startup raised $40 billion in the largest private tech funding round ever, at a $300 billion valuation.
What was the dot-com bubble?
Altman compared the AI bubble to “the tech bubble” or the dot-com crash that occurred between 2000 and 2002 when the Nasdaq lost nearly 80% of its value.
The dot-com crash was caused by investors overvaluing Internet-based tech companies that lacked sustainable business models and had little to no profits. When the dot-com bubble burst, investors incurred considerable financial losses, and many tech companies went out of business.
Related: OpenAI Is Creating AI to Do ‘All the Things That Software Engineers Hate to Do’
Bubble or not, OpenAI is still growing
Even if an influx of funding is contributing to an AI bubble, Altman says that OpenAI still intends to spend heavily, up to “trillions of dollars on datacenter construction in the not very distant future,” according to CNBC. The company is betting on growing demand to bolster spending.
OpenAI’s flagship product, ChatGPT, now reaches 700 million weekly users, a fourfold increase from the same time last year. Altman said at the dinner that ChatGPT is “the fifth biggest website in the world right now” and is angling to move up to the third slot by beating out Facebook and Instagram. Google and YouTube are the two top-visited sites in the world as of January.
It’s also releasing new, updated versions of its AI. Earlier this month, OpenAI released its latest AI model, GPT-5, which is more efficient and boasts improvements in coding, math, and other subjects compared to previous models.
Altman says that AI is “the most important thing to happen in a very long time.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks that the billions of dollars invested in AI now could create a bubble similar to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s.
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” Altman said at a recent dinner, per The Verge. “Smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth.”
The data shows that AI startups are the focus of more funding now than ever. According to PitchBook, AI startups raised $104.3 billion in the U.S. in the first half of 2025, which was almost as much as the total amount raised by all startups in 2024. PitchBook found that almost two in three U.S. venture funding dollars went to AI startups this year, higher than 49% of funds last year.
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