A warning light that hasn't flickered in two decades just turned bright blue on Wall Street, and it's all about AI spending getting out of hand.

The Bank of America Global Fund Manager Survey, reported by Fortune and Hedge Fund Tips, reveals something markets haven't witnessed since August 2005: a majority of fund managers now think companies are overinvesting. The metric, which stayed below zero for most of the past 20 years, suddenly spiked upward in November 2025 to hit a net 20%.

The AI Spending Frenzy

What changed? One word: artificial intelligence. Companies across every sector are throwing billions at data centers, GPUs, model development, automation infrastructure, and AI-enabled services. The 202 fund managers surveyed by BofA, who collectively manage $550 billion in assets, are starting to think it's too much.

This reversal is remarkable when you consider the historical context. Following the financial crisis, fund managers consistently complained that corporations were too cautious, sitting on cash piles and refusing to invest. Now the pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction.

The survey highlights growing concerns about both the scale of AI-driven capital expenditures and how companies are financing them. Translation: there's fear that companies are taking on excessive debt to fund their AI ambitions.

Market Tremors

When the survey first dropped, markets barely blinked. This week told a different story.

Volatility slammed Wall Street on Thursday, dragging the Nasdaq down 2.2% and the S&P 500 lower by 1.6% as tech stocks gave back early gains. The catalyst wasn't Nvidia's (NVDA) stellar earnings—it was mounting anxiety that AI investment levels might be unsustainable.

Then BCA Research strategist Peter Berezin dropped a sobering analysis on X. He warned that hyperscalers—including Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL)—could be carrying over $2.5 trillion in AI-related assets by 2030. With typical depreciation rates around 20%, that translates to $500 billion in annual depreciation expenses. The kicker? That figure could exceed the companies' combined projected profits for 2025.

So we've gone from two decades of "companies won't spend enough" to "maybe they're spending way too much." The AI boom is real, but the question Wall Street is now asking is whether the bill will be worth it.