Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, has issued one of the most grounded warnings of the current artificial intelligence boom: AI will create both victors and carnage. In his view, today’s moment feels uncomfortably similar to the dot-com era—an explosion of promise, capital, and experimentation, followed inevitably by consolidation and failure. For business leaders, the message is clear: AI is transformational, but not everyone survives transformation.
During the late 1990s, the internet rewired the global economy. Countless companies rushed online, valuations detached from fundamentals, and capital chased ideas faster than execution. When the crash came, most dot-coms vanished. Yet the internet did not fail. Instead, it matured. The true winners were infrastructure builders—network providers, semiconductor companies, and platforms that enabled scale. Cisco itself emerged stronger, supplying the backbone of the digital economy.
Robbins sees AI following a similar trajectory. The technology is real. The productivity gains are real. But the market is overcrowded with undifferentiated AI startups, fragile business models, and companies bolting “AI” onto products without rethinking operating models, data strategy, or security. As with the dot-com bubble, capital is currently forgiving. That leniency will not last.
The coming “carnage” Robbins refers to is not a collapse of AI, but a reckoning for organizations that misjudge where durable value lies. AI is infrastructure-heavy. It demands massive compute, resilient networks, secure data flows, and governance at scale. Firms that underestimate those requirements—or treat AI as a short-term feature rather than a long-term capability—will struggle when costs rise and customers demand results, not demos.
On the other side of the divide are the victors. These will be companies that focus on foundations rather than flash. Infrastructure providers, cloud and networking leaders, cybersecurity firms, and enterprises that deeply integrate AI into workflows—not just interfaces—stand to compound advantages. In the dot-com era, Amazon survived because it built logistics, not just a website. In AI, winners will build data moats, operational leverage, and trust.
Robbins’ warning is especially relevant for CEOs navigating 2026 planning cycles. AI strategy cannot live solely in innovation labs. It must touch talent, governance, supply chains, and customer experience. Importantly, it must be economically defensible. Many AI use cases look impressive but fail basic ROI scrutiny once scaled. When capital tightens, those experiments will be the first to go.
The parallel to the dot-com crash should not inspire fear, but discipline. The internet reshaped everything—after the noise settled. AI will do the same. The question for leaders is whether they are building for the shakeout or merely riding the hype.
As Robbins suggests, AI will absolutely produce winners. But it will also expose weak strategies with brutal efficiency. In this cycle, survival is not about being first—it is about being fundamental.
