Deutsche Bank CEO downplays AI bubble fears amid investor warnings

One day after Citadel’s Ken Griffin told investors they are “almost certainly” in an AI bubble, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing offered a different read. He doesn’t see one. Two days, two very different takes Griffin went first. On October 20, 2026, speaking at the Citadel Future of Global Markets Conference, the billionaire hedge fund founder warned that markets were likely in bubble territory. His argument centered on a gap between spending and payoff. Corporations are pouring money into AI tools from providers like Anthropic and OpenAI, he said, but many are struggling to turn that investment into real productivity gains. Griffin also drew on history. He pointed to the pattern of major economic transformations producing bubbles along the way, with the dot-com boom as the obvious reference. Sewing responded on October 21, 2026, arguing that fears of an AI bubble are unjustified. In his view, the market volatility and rising interest rates rattling investors have more to do with geopolitical tensions than with anything specific to AI. What Deutsche Bank’s research actually says On the cautious side, the bank’s analysts acknowledge that some private AI company valuations look st...