Full Signal The AI bubble won’t burst the way you think | Kai Wu
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Feb 12, 2026 Kai Wu, founder of Sparkline Capital and a data-driven researcher of AI adoption and market winners. He explains the shift from AI infrastructure to adoption. He discusses tracking AI mentions and ROI signals, distinguishing infrastructure, early adopters, and laggards. He highlights how intra-industry leaders capture gains and a possible rotation from mega-cap infrastructure to profitable adopters.
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S-Curve: Builders Then Adopters
- Technological booms follow an S-curve that moves from infrastructure build-out to user adoption and value capture.
- Long-term winners are usually the businesses that use the infrastructure, not the infrastructure builders themselves.
Pick Stocks By Concrete AI Claims
- Use earnings-call language to triage companies by AI maturity: mentions, quantified gains, and ROI linkage.
- Prioritize firms that cite numeric productivity or ROI on AI over vague AI mentions.
ROI Mentions Predict Outperformance
- Companies that explicitly report AI-driven ROI have historically outperformed peers by a measurable margin.
- Earnings-call claims are lagging indicators; underlying hiring, patents, and trademarks lead future ROI mentions.