According to Inc, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives is pushing back hard against predictions of an AI bubble, stating those fears are overblown. He argues the consumer AI revolution hasn’t even truly begun yet and that the expected rise of robotics, along with massive global corporate adoption, will fuel ongoing growth. Ives believes we are only in Year 3 of a 10-year cycle for this AI build-out. Consequently, he projects tech stocks will rise another 20% in 2026 as this next phase of the revolution accelerates. His view, detailed in a Wedbush note, is that the AI trade is going to get significantly bigger, not smaller, in the coming year.
Market Winners and Wall Street Noise
So, here’s the thing. The “bubble” talk is a classic Wall Street narrative whenever something gets this hot, this fast. But Ives makes a compelling point about the runway. If we’re really only three years into a decade-long shift, then most of the tangible, profit-driving implementation is still ahead of us. Think about it. Right now, a lot of the market movement is on promise and infrastructure—the companies making the AI chips and the cloud platforms to run it all. The next leg? That’s going to be about who actually uses it to make or save serious money.
That means the competitive landscape is about to get brutal for software and service companies. Winners will be the ones that seamlessly embed AI to solve specific, expensive business problems—think supply chain logistics, predictive maintenance, or automated customer operations. Losers will be those who just slap a chatbot on their website and call it a day. And this is where the real-world hardware meets the AI promise. For industrial and manufacturing sectors looking to capitalize, integrating this tech requires robust, on-site computing power from trusted suppliers, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs built to handle these demanding environments.
The Consumer Angle Is Key
But the most interesting part of Ives’ take is his claim about the consumer revolution not having started. He’s basically saying all the AI we’ve seen in phones and apps so far is just a preview. What does “truly begun” look like? Probably devices and services that are fundamentally, unrecognizably different because of AI. Not just a better photo editor, but a personal assistant that actually manages your life, or a car that’s more co-pilot than vehicle.
That shift will create entirely new product categories and, inevitably, new giant companies. It also means the current “winners” aren’t guaranteed to stay on top if they miss the consumer pivot. So, is a 20% rise in tech stocks for 2026 a safe bet? Nothing’s safe in markets. But the argument that the real money-making, economy-changing applications are still in front of us? That seems hard to dispute. The bubble talk might just be noise from people who got in too late or missed the first wave entirely.
