Bertie’s Take: If AI’s So Smart, Why Am I Still Working This Hard

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In this week’s edition of Markets with Bertie, the spotlight turns to artificial intelligence—not as a technological marvel, but as a financial phenomenon. With capital spending on AI infrastructure reaching historic highs, Bertie, a seasoned fund manager based in Mumbai, asks the question echoing across boardrooms and trading floors: is AI truly driving productivity, or is it simply inflating market valuations?

Here’s a deep dive into the paradox that’s puzzling investors and technologists alike.

The productivity puzzle

1. Despite widespread adoption, AI’s impact on personal and organizational productivity remains elusive. Bertie, who considers himself a 76th percentile adopter of new tech, admits that his own workflow hasn’t seen transformative gains.
2. While AI tools have added novelty—like editing family photos for WhatsApp drama—they haven’t delivered the promised leap in efficiency or reduced work hours.
3. The dream of a 15-hour work week powered by AI, once imagined as a Keynesian utopia, still feels distant. Most users, including early adopters, report marginal improvements rather than revolutionary change.

The market mania

1. In stark contrast to modest productivity gains, financial markets are experiencing an AI-fueled boom. Hyper-scalers, or large tech firms investing in AI infrastructure, are spending billions on data centers, chips, and cloud capacity.
2. Nvidia, the dominant AI chipmaker, has emerged as the bellwether of this trend. Its stock price movements are closely followed by a cascade of downstream beneficiaries—from hardware suppliers to energy grid operators.
3. Investors hang on every word of Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, as if his guidance alone can steer the market. This herd behavior has created a feedback loop where capital flows chase hype more than utility.

The disconnect

1. Bertie points out a growing inconsistency: while AI’s marginal utility appears to be declining, the capital expenditure behind it is accelerating.
2. This raises a fundamental question—are we witnessing the birth of a productivity revolution, or the largest speculative bubble in tech history?
3. The answer may lie in the nature of AI adoption. Most companies are still in early stages, experimenting with generative tools and automation without fully integrating them into core workflows.

The investment dilemma

1. For investors, the AI narrative presents a binary bet. Either a breakthrough is imminent that will justify the spending spree, or the market is overestimating AI’s near-term potential.
2. Morgan Stanley estimates that AI could add up to 16 trillion dollars to global market capitalization, but warns that 90 percent of jobs may be impacted, requiring massive workforce adaptation.
3. Goldman Sachs projects global AI investment to approach 200 billion dollars by the end of 2025, yet notes that most companies report cost savings of less than 10 percent from AI implementation.

The Bertie perspective

1. Bertie’s skepticism is rooted in experience. Having lived through multiple tech cycles—from dot-com to blockchain—he knows that hype often precedes utility.
2. He’s not dismissing AI’s long-term promise, but urges caution in equating infrastructure spending with productivity gains.
3. His advice to fellow investors is simple: watch for real-world use cases that scale, not just stock charts that soar.

Looking ahead

As AI continues to dominate headlines and earnings calls, the gap between its perceived value and actual impact may widen before it narrows. Whether AI becomes the engine of a new economic era or a cautionary tale of overinvestment will depend on how quickly it moves from novelty to necessity.

Sources: Livemint, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Stanford HAI, Economic Times