The AI investment boom is “deja vu all over again” for veteran investors who lived through the dotcom, blockchain and metaverse bubbles, who say they are now seeing attempts from start-ups to cash in on artificial intelligence in ways that are “completely nuts”.

With investments in AI reaching dizzying heights, several seasoned investors told The Australian Financial Review that start-ups that just a year ago were trying to inflate their value by calling themselves “web 3.0” or “blockchain” companies were replacing the term with “AI”, even though they had little or nothing to do with any of those technologies.