OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that, given all the AI hype from investors and capital expenditures, we’re currently in an AI bubble. Altman made the statement during a conversation with The Verge and a handful of other reporters on Thursday.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
“Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes,” said Altman. “Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”
He also expressed his regrets over the sudden launch of GPT-5, the company’s latest AI model. “I think we totally screwed up some things on the rollout,” Altman said.
When it launched earlier this year, GPT-5 replaced all previous models, including GPT-4o. This led to protests by fans who preferred 4o’s more conversational nature. In response, OpenAI returned access to 4o for Plus users.
Altman also shared worries about the parasocial relationship some people form with his AI chatbot, but confirmed that ChatGPT will not become a sex robot.
700 million weekly users and growing
Altman said ChatGPT has 700 million weekly users, making it the fifth most popular website in the world. He predicts that ChatGPT will soon jump to the third spot, beating Instagram and Facebook but behind Google and YouTube.
The popularity means OpenAI’s servers are at capacity. The load is so great that Altman admits OpenAI can’t release better models it has already developed because there isn’t enough server capacity to keep up. According to the CEO, OpenAI will spend a trillion dollars on data centers in the “not very distant future.”
Altman also slightly poked fun at Elon Musk’s Grok, which released an AI companion that was more risqué. “You will definitely see some companies go make Japanese anime sex bots,” said Altman. He argued that OpenAI wants to make useful apps and not exploit those in fragile mental states.
Investment in AI development is at an all-time high. Capital expenditure in AI added more to the US GDP in the last two quarters than all consumer spending, according to Renaissance Macro Research. It’s a staggering statistic, and the first time such a figure has ever been recorded.
Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft plan to spend $364 billion on AI in 2025 alone. Such expenditures are boosting the economy overall, and any changes to that could have major external effects.
The global tariffs placed by the Trump administration mean investors are looking to software companies as a safe haven because their focus is less on importing and exporting goods. Analysts worry that AI is creating a massive economic bubble. If it were to pop, the reverberations could be massive, potentially crashing the economy.
Altman said that OpenAI will make a brain-computer interface to compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink and that more apps beyond ChatGPT are on the way. OpenAI is also interested in buying Chrome if the government forces Google to sell the popular web browser.