Sierra co-founder Bret Taylor said the artificial intelligence boom "probably is a bubble" at Axios' AI+ Summit in San Francisco Thursday, but like the 1990s dot-com bubble, that depends on how you're invested.
The big picture: As the industry barrels forward, concerns about circular financing and valuation continue to fuel fears of about how the market would be rocked if the AI bubble pops.
Driving the news: But Taylor told Axios' Ina Fried "it would be a mistake to dismiss it as snake oil."
- "If you invested in Amazon.com, your perspective on the dot-com bubble is very different than you were all-in on Buy.com," an e-commerce company whose rise and fall was symbolic of the era.
- The original dot-com bubble — which peaked in March 2000 — burst with a slow-moving crash.
What they're saying: He thinks that holds lessons for today's rapidly growing AI industry. There will be failures — but there will also be companies that are "truly generational."
- Taylor noted that's hard for entrepreneurs who are jockeying to be the generational one.
Context: Sierra's founders, who met while working at Google, have roots in search engine and AI royalty: Taylor is the former Salesforce co-CEO and current OpenAI chair, and Clay Bavor is a former Google exec.
- AI agents are a hot topic in 2025, and they've been Sierra's focus from the start.
Zoom out: Bavor said his "bubble indicator" is the amount of time he sees the word "agentic" on billboards.
- "It's pretty high right now. But I think it captures this kind of dichotomy ... where there is unequivocal, massive potential in this technology," he said, adding, "And yet, boy, there's a lot of agentic on those billboards."
Go deeper: Exclusive: These tech executives want to support AI agents with more AI
