The AI gold rush is cooling. Investors are back to one boring question. Does it actually make money?

This month it got real. AI stocks sold off across Asia and the US in a single week. In one morning, the biggest chip names lost more than a tenth of their value. The mood turned overnight.

The numbers explain why. This year AI is expected to bring in under $50 billion, against more than a trillion dollars of investment. Revenue and spending are not in the same universe yet.

More than half of fund managers now call AI stocks a bubble. They are not saying AI is fake. They are saying the price ran ahead of the cash.

History rhymes here. The roll-ups and dot-coms that died all looked the same. A great story, and revenue that never caught up to it.

AI will change everything. That can be true and a bubble at the same time. The companies that survive the cooling will be the boring ones. The ones that already make money.

I run five companies. I have learned to love a boring number: the cash that actually comes in.

Strip out the AI label. Would the business still make money?