Technology & Telecommunications

Prior to the conflict, investors were debating AI’s immediate and long-term impact. While 2025 was about the rise of the AI “picks and shovels” – enablers like Nvidia – 2026 witnessed the emergence of agentic AI, and the narrative quickly became about the fall of the middlemen – the traditional software companies that built epochal and capital-light business on a per-seat revenue model.

This article was first published in The Australian on 25 March 2026. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Economics, Global markets, In the Press, Investing Education, Market commentary, Market Valuation, Technology & Telecommunications.

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As Agentic artificial intelligence (AI)’s threat to jobs spreads ever wider, the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is shifting from theory to, frighteningly, a central pillar of Silicon Valley’s vision for our future.

Love him or hate him now, OpenAI’s Sam Altman was the first to publicly discuss a UBI, announcing in early 2016 that Y Combinator would fund a multi-year, large-scale UBI study to prepare for an automated future. Elon Musk followed later that year, saying in a CNBC interview that UBI is “going to be necessary” because “there will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better.” continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Global markets, Insightful Insights, Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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I recently wrote an article for The Australian, titled, How AI boom and a liquidity crisis are threatening to upend markets. It garnered quite a few comments highlighting a range of opinions about where artificial intelligence (AI) is headed and where it might be taking humanity.

The “AI Revolution” is being sold to us as either a sleek, inevitable future of effortless productivity or one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bringing destruction to humanity, first by laying waste to the workforce. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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Today on Ausbiz with Juliette Saly, I discussed the growing hype around humanoid robots. While many companies promise household robots within a decade, leading roboticist Rodney Brooks believes major technical hurdles remain before they can perform meaningful work in homes or industry. 

We explored the limitations of bipedal design, the extraordinary dexterity of the human hand, and the safety challenges robots face when interacting with people. For investors, it is a reminder that technological excitement often runs ahead of reality, and markets can price in adoption long before the technology is ready. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Technology & Telecommunications, TV Appearances.

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If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, you’ve seen them: sleek, metallic bipeds performing backflips in China, dancing to Motown, or gingerly stacking the dishwasher or placing a singular box on a shelf. The robotics hype cycle suggests that in four years’ time (2030), a robot will be folding your laundry and helping your nanna out of bed.

Despite billions of dollars invested, however, they remain science experiments confronting daunting technical challenges. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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April 9, last year, Donald Trump postponed his Liberation Day tariffs, fuelling a stock market rally led by artificial intelligence (AI) optimism. That optimism turned to fear this year as joy towards AI’s productivity enhancements morphed into panic about how many businesses it would destroy.

That panic reached an even higher level of urgency last week, when James van Geelen, a thematic investor and former entrepreneur who founded a healthcare company before moving into investment research on Substack, hypothesised that AI would lay waste to the entire global consumer economy, leaving generations of white-collar workers redundant. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Market Valuation, Technology & Telecommunications.

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While investors look to the next Nvidia earnings call or the latest OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models) release to predict the future of artificial intelligence (AI), Michael Burry – made famous for making billions shorting markets ahead of 2008 subprime crisis – recently turned to an article entitled Thought without Language, The Narrative of a Deaf-Mute, His First Thoughts and Experiences, in the June 19, 1880, edition of the New York Times.

“The case study is of a teacher at the Columbia Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. This particular teacher, Melville Ballard, is also a deaf mute and a graduate of the National Deaf Mute College.” continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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As we have outlined here on the blog many times over the last year, there just doesn’t seem to be enough money in the hands of potential customers to pay for artificial intelligence (AI) tools that would give hyperscalers a decent return on their intended capital expenditure.

The more they spend, the more revenue and profit they must generate to produce a meaningful return on capital. But the more they invest through capital expenditure, the more competition there’ll be between them (lowering prices for their commoditised products) or the greater the level of overcapacity (also lowering prices).

And when you think about the companies in this race, the capital expenditure (capex) is transforming them from cash-generative, capital-light, high-margin businesses whose services have become verbs into capital-heavy, highly indebted businesses. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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The stock market is experiencing a dramatic bifurcation. While traditional sectors surge – energy companies are up over 20 per cent and materials firms 15 per cent – a different story is unfolding in the technology and financial services sectors. Established players are watching their valuations crumble as investors grapple with the answers to a simple question: which companies will survive the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution? continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Market commentary, Technology & Telecommunications.

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I joined Paul Turton on ABC Newcastle Mornings to discuss the recent volatility in global markets, driven by U.S. tariffs, political uncertainty and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI). I explained that because the U.S. represents around 30 to 40 per cent of global market capitalisation, what happens there inevitably affects Australia, and heightened uncertainty is making investors less willing to pay elevated valuations. continue…

by Roger Montgomery Posted in Companies, Radio, Technology & Telecommunications.

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