Larry’s risky business

The Verge / 4/29/2026

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Key Points

  • Oracle has become the best public signal for whether the AI bubble is bursting, according to the article’s framing.
  • The company has “burned its boats” by pivoting toward AI rather than pursuing AI in the way typical model builders (e.g., OpenAI or Anthropic) do.
  • Instead of training foundation models, Oracle is betting on a specific future form of AI delivered through a software-as-a-service approach.
  • The shift also overlaps with the bare-metal infrastructure trend seen in AI datacenter providers like CoreWeave, positioning Oracle in the broader AI compute ecosystem.
  • Oracle’s AI strategy is portrayed as audacious partly because it aims to compensate for the gradual decline of its traditional database business while competing with much newer AI players.
An image of Larry Ellison with a basket of eggs balanced on his head in a basket with the OpenAI logo.
Oracular spectacular? | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

If you want to know whether the AI bubble is bursting, there's only one publicly traded company that will tell you: Oracle.

That's right, the database company. Oracle has burned its boats and pivoted to AI, but not in any kind of usual way. It is not a foundation model builder like OpenAI or Anthropic, obviously. It's not quite a neocloud, though it has entered the same bare-metal business as CoreWeave. It is a software-as-a-service company that has made an audacious bet on a very specific future version of AI as Oracle's traditional business has gracefully declined. It is significantly older than any of its AI competitors, save Microsoft, …

Read the full story at The Verge.