Illustration of a robot hand touching a bubble with a human hand cupped beneath.

Illustration: Julia Dufossé

Feb 8th 2026|7 min read

On February 8th sports fans watching the Super Bowl, an American-football game, were treated to an ad for Claude, an artificial-intelligence chatbot. That might have given investors with long memories an unsettling sense of déjà vu. The Super Bowl of 2000 passed into market folklore as having epitomised internet-stock mania: no fewer than 17 “dotcom” firms paid millions of dollars each for 30-second advertising slots. Weeks later share prices fell into a brutal bear market.

Signage for Mizuho Bank Ltd., a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (MHFG), at one of the bank's branches in Tokyo, Japan.

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