Morgan Stanley CEO Expects Another Decade of Major AI Investment

Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said on Wednesday that he expects the AI buildout will encounter bottlenecks and periods of overbuilding, but investment will continue at a massive scale over the next several years.

Pick also said during Morgan Stanley’s third-quarter earnings call that the bank’s role is to regulate the flow of AI capital expenditure, slowing down when the market moves too quickly and speeding up as needed. “The quantums are so big, and the growth of the U.S. economy is at some level, and even the global economy, being powered by this AI CapEx cycle,” he told analysts.

Pick added that he foresees an annual run rate of “plus or minus a trillion dollars,” as the baseline for AI spending over the next five to 10 years.

JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum on Tuesday said during the company’s third quarter earnings call that the bank, for its part, is carefully monitoring its AI exposure as the capex demands of the AI buildout continue to rise. Both executives’ comments arrive as investors have grown more cautious of AI-related deals in recent weeks.