Cisco Boss Warns AI Gold Rush Will End in a Reckoning

If the influx of AI-related everything these days hasn’t tipped you off already, I’ll be the one to break it to you: AI is here to stay. But how will its boom of seemingly endless widespread popularity impact the world, and will it ever slow down?

The AI boom is indeed transforming tech at a rapid pace; the road ahead is unlikely to be smooth. Chuck Robbins, chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems, has warned that while AI will reshape the global economy and ultimately be “bigger than the internet,” it will also leave failed companies and disruption in the job market in its wake.

In comments to the BBC, Robbins described the current surge in AI investment as a bubble that will eventually burst, even as the technology itself endures. He added that history suggests that transformative technologies often arrive with painful corrections, as seen following the dotcom bubble burst.

At a time when capital is pouring into AI at historic levels, and expectations are high, comparisons with the dotcom era are becoming increasingly common, and not without reason. Cisco is all too familiar with this, as in 2000, at the height of internet optimism, it briefly became the world’s most valuable company before losing around 80% of its value when the bubble collapsed.

A familiar boom-and-bust pattern

Despite the risks, Robbins remains confident about AI’s long-term trajectory. He argues that bubbles are a feature of major technological shifts, not a sign that the underlying innovation is flawed. “There’s been a lot of discussion about: ‘Is this a bubble?’. And the answer is probably yes, but we had a bubble in 2000 with the internet. And look at where we are today.”

Cisco now sits at the heart of the AI ecosystem, providing critical networking and infrastructure that enable large-scale AI systems, often in partnership with firms such as Nvidia. The company reported £1.3 billion in orders in a single quarter, which goes to show how central AI has already become to enterprise technology.

Robbins believes many heavily funded AI companies will fail, but that outcome is almost inevitable. The survivors, he says, will shape how AI is actually used. “It feels a lot like it (the dotcom crash), but what happens is you’ll have money that will be invested in companies that won’t make it, but the winners will emerge, the applications and use cases will begin to evolve,” he told the BBC, likening AI’s future development to the iPhone, where entirely new categories of apps emerged over time.

Jobs, inequality, and the human cost

This disruption, however, will not be limited to markets, as perhaps the most sensitive impact of AI will be on employment. Robbins acknowledged that AI will eliminate some roles altogether, particularly in areas like customer service, where automation can replace human labor. Others will be reshaped in ways that demand new skills.

Those concerns align with broader global warnings. A recent UN Conference on Trade and Development report estimates that AI could affect up to 40% of jobs globally, with automation and job displacement posing particular risks to economies reliant on low-cost labor. 

The report also warns that AI could potentially deepen inequality if governments fail to invest in skills, infrastructure, and data access. Additionally, AI investment is highly concentrated, with roughly 40% of global funding controlled by just 100 companies, mostly based in the US and China, raising fears of widening global inequality.

Similar caution has come from Silicon Valley itself. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has described the AI investment surge as an “extraordinary moment” marked by “elements of irrationality,” warning that no company would be immune if the market turns sharply downward.

Still, he urged workers not to view AI as the enemy. The bigger threat, he said, is falling behind colleagues who take the extra measures to learn how to use AI tools in their work effectively. “You shouldn’t worry as much about AI taking your job as you should worry about someone who’s very good using AI taking your job,” he said.

Security risks and global competition

Robbins also warned that AI will give a boost to cybercrime, making cyberattacks and online scams more convincing and more dangerous. Cisco is investing in advanced security technologies, including quantum-resistant approaches, to mitigate those threats, arguing that every technological revolution brings new risks alongside progress.

While the US and China currently dominate AI development, Robbins believes the UK still has a strong chance to compete. He told the BBC that the country has “pretty good odds” of becoming an AI superpower if it continues to embrace the technology early and decisively.

The message from tech industry leaders is becoming harder to ignore: AI will have a strong impact on everything, not smoothly, not evenly, and not without significant casualties along the way. As with the rise of the internet before it, the long-term winners may redefine entire industries, while many others are left in the dust.

Also read: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the AI boom will spur demand for electricians and plumbers as the data centre buildout accelerates.

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