AI Bubble Update: 79% of Companies Say Their GPUs Sit Idle at Least Half the Time, Yet Most Plan New AI Platforms
VentureBeat, Friday, October 23rd, 2026
VentureBeat survey finds most firms' GPUs are underused, yet 70% plan new AI compute platforms, mostly without finance-reviewed ROI.
VentureBeat's VB Pulse surveys found 79% of 218 companies reporting GPU utilization said their GPUs are busy half the time or less, yet 70% of them plan new or replacement AI compute platforms within a year, mostly cloud or model providers.
Companies running their own stacks reported less idle capacity.
Matt Marshall argues enterprises are paying for two kinds of AI that don't substitute easily, dedicated capacity and per-token frontier models, and that 91% of companies planning new platforms had no finance-reviewed ROI figure.
He recommends measuring cost per completed task, caching context and filling idle GPU hours with deferrable work.