Investments in Artificial Intelligence in 2025: From Euphoria to Selection
In 2025, the market for artificial intelligence investments finally moved beyond the phase of unconditional belief in everything carrying the AI label. After several years of rapid growth, investors became significantly more cautious, and the market itself more selective. This is neither a collapse nor a crisis, but rather a transition into a more complex, mature phase where loud promises and flashy presentations are no longer enough. What is required now are results, scale, and real infrastructure.
It is telling that against this backdrop of caution, U.S. stock indices reached historic highs. Since the beginning of the year, the S&P 500 has risen by more than 17%, while the Nasdaq has gained 22%. These figures matter because they show that this is not about a loss of confidence in the technology sector as a whole, but about an internal redistribution of capital. Money is not disappearing it is flowing toward those capable of proving efficiency.
The second half of 2025 clearly exposed a divide within the AI market. Concerns over overvalued assets, macroeconomic pressure, and talk of a potential “AI bubble” made trading more volatile. Within the so-called “Magnificent Seven” tech giants, performance turned out to be uneven. Alphabet and Nvidia emerged as clear leaders, while Amazon and Apple lagged noticeably behind investor expectations.
At the beginning of the year, Alphabet was often described as an outsider in the artificial intelligence race. The situation changed radically with the launch of Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro. The most telling indicator was the growth of AI Overviews users in Google Search to 2 billion per month. The market responded instantly: Alphabet’s shares rose by 66%, making the company the most successful among major technology players this year.
This breakthrough also had side effects for competitors. In December 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a “code red” inside the company to accelerate improvements to ChatGPT and temporarily postpone other products. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the main challenge for OpenAI remains Google. Paradoxically, this dynamic benefited Alphabet’s partners, including Broadcom, while companies associated with OpenAI Nvidia and Microsoft delivered weaker-than-expected results.
However, the biggest surprises of 2025 came not from software, but from AI infrastructure. This is where investors saw the clearest answer to where real money is being made. Western Digital gained more than 290%, Micron Technology rose by 228%, and Seagate by 227%. The reason is both simple and telling: a boom in the construction of AI data centers and a sharp increase in demand for memory and data storage systems.
This trend is reinforced by major deals. In early November 2025, OpenAI and Amazon Web Services signed a multi-year agreement of at least seven years, allowing OpenAI to scale its AI systems on AWS infrastructure. At the same time, OpenAI’s partners SoftBank, Oracle, CoreWeave, and others have already raised nearly $100 billion in loans to finance infrastructure expansion. Analysts predict that the high-speed memory market for AI could reach $100 billion by 2028. This is precisely where investors see long-term value.
The year 2025 also marked the moment when AI stopped being an abstract technology and began to enter everyday use cases on a massive scale. Major retailers and delivery services Amazon, Walmart, DoorDash, Instacart are actively integrating AI agents into shopping experiences. DoorDash, which integrated with ChatGPT, added around 40% to its share value, demonstrating that applied AI use translates directly into business growth.
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A separate and increasingly visible trend is so-called “physical AI”. Robotaxis, humanoid robots, and autonomous systems are moving out of testing phases. Waymo by Alphabet is expanding robotaxi services in the United States, Teslais ramping up ambitions in robotics, and Uber and Lyft are preparing to test autonomous taxis in the United Kingdom. In November 2025, Estonian company Bolt signed a deal with Chinese firm Pony.ai to launch autonomous robotaxis in Europe. At the end of October, NVIDIA announced a partnership with Uber to create the world’s largest network of Level 4 autonomous vehicles, with the first expected to hit the roads as early as 2027.
At the same time, AI growth has a darker side. In 2025, major global companies carried out mass layoffs, shifting parts of their workforce functions to algorithms. One of the most striking examples was Amazon’s plan to lay off nearly 500,000 employees. This serves as a reminder that technological progress in its current form is not only about innovation, but also about a painful restructuring of the labor market.
Another unexpected growth area is space infrastructure. OpenAI’s interest in this sector fueled the rise of stocks such as EchoStar, AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab, some of which gained over 300% in a single year. Investors are increasingly viewing AI as a technology that requires global data and communication systems, not just terrestrial data centers.
Against this background, it is notable that Ukraine climbed 14 positions in the Government AI Readiness Index 2025, compiled by the British analytical agency Oxford Insights. This indicates that global processes are not bypassing the country, even under the difficult conditions of war.
In summary, 2025 became a year of maturity testing for artificial intelligence. Investors are no longer financing ideas for the sake of ideas. They are investing in infrastructure, scale, and applied solutions capable of generating revenue here and now. This shift from loud promises to cold calculation defines the new reality of the AI market. And it seems clear that a return to unconditional euphoria is unlikely.
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