Sep 25, 2026 · 23 min
AI spending rises as bond markets price a higher-rate era
Muse Powers Meta to Cusp of $2 Trillion in Best Month Since 2013
The episode connects Big Tech’s AI investment race with a bond-market shift that could make financing and valuations more demanding.
- 1Microsoft is repositioning Copilot around enterprise distribution, paid Office upgrades, and agentic workplace capabilities.
- 2Meta’s Muse launch highlights how personal AI agents are becoming central to technology companies’ valuation and capital-spending strategies.
- 3Rising real yields, fiscal stimulus, sticky inflation, and stronger growth point toward a potentially lasting higher-rate environment.
Don't miss
Michael Mackenzie’s argument that rising real yields, rather than inflation alone, explain the bond-market shakeout and point to a higher-rate world.
The brief
Microsoft is steering Copilot away from a consumer chatbot contest and toward enterprise software, where Office distribution and paid upgrades offer a clearer path to adoption.
Meta’s Muse launch becomes a test of whether personal AI agents can justify stronger expectations for the company’s valuation and future investment.
Mandeep Singh examines Anthropic’s multibillion-dollar computing commitments, possible IPO timing, and the broader race among frontier AI companies to secure capacity.
The discussion then shifts from AI capital expenditure to long-term Treasury yields, asking whether fiscal stimulus, sticky inflation, and stronger growth mark a durable regime change.
Michael Mackenzie argues that rising real yields—not only inflation fears—are driving the bond selloff, with markets expecting stronger growth and a Federal Reserve behind the curve.