14 September 2026
If you are covering the sell-off in technology and artificial intelligence related stocks, please find below a comment from Ben Barringer, head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot:
"There has been a lot of noise around artificial intelligence in the past week, with high profile resignations and posts from both Anthropic and Open AI culminating in Dario Amodei penning this substantial essay. This has resulted in tech stocks, particularly those significantly exposed to the semiconductor industry, selling off as investors fear a potential slowdown in the industry in on the way after what has been a staggering build out in recent years.
"There are a lot of reasons why Amodei might be writing something like this at this juncture and it probably does throw up more questions than answers, which the market will not like. AI has somewhat of a bad reputation, especially in the US, so he may spot an opportunity to appear to be the grown up in the room and lead the debate around responsible use of the tech. The company is also in IPO mode so Amodei will want to show the company is a good steward of investors’ capital, while there may also be an element of looking to push a fresh regulatory agenda and push for more controls that may ultimately be beneficial for Anthropic.
"Regardless of this, it has clearly spooked the market that the pace of change may slow. However, while things may slow somewhat, the pace of change is still going to be vast. Indeed, Amodei is talking about slowing the pace of training from very fast to just fast, so benefits are still going to come quickly.
"But even if training and rollout is slowed, inference is still the area that the industry is short in supply. Demand still far outstrips supply, so even if things are to slow a little, company revenues are unlikely to be impacted. We have seen such calls before, albeit not from as prominent a source as Amodei, with very little long-term impact. With lots of moving parts at play here, especially Anthropic-specific ones, the wider market will need to get more clarity on the path for AI spending before it can make progress, especially at a time of rising interest rates."
