AI’s Bar Mitzvah Moment: From Hype & Hope to Business Questions!

Aswath Damodaran · 20 Aug 2026 · aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Aswath Damodaran did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
AI’s total addressable market in the United States cannot exceed what American employers pay their employees, about $13 trillion a year.

Their wordsI would argue that AI's total addressable market, in the US, cannot be greater than $12.96 trillion, the total employee compensation in 2025

Interesting
Our reading
The trillion-plus prices rumoured for OpenAI and Anthropic ahead of their listings look rich.

Their wordsI will confess that the rumored pricing for both companies ($1.5 to $ 2 trillion) looks rich, but I am open to being surprised

Interesting
Our reading
Nobody can yet know whether the current enthusiasm for AI is excessive, so anyone claiming conviction about how it resolves is overreaching.

Their wordsanyone who claims to have conviction that they know what's coming is being either ignorant or arrogant

Interesting