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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsBlackstone President and COO Jonathan Gray says investors may be fixating on whether AI companies are overvalued while overlooking a different risk: AI could change the economics of established businesses. He has pointed to rules-based work such as law and accounting, and later named professional services, software, auto repair and insurance as areas facing potential disruption. These are Gray’s risk assessments, not evidence that those industries are already obsolete.
What Gray says Wall Street is missing
At the Financial Times Private Capital Summit in London in October 2025, Gray contrasted concern about an AI investment bubble with the possibility that AI could disrupt incumbent companies. WinBuzzer quoted him asking: “People say, ‘This smells like a bubble,’ but they’re not asking: ‘What about legacy businesses that could be massively disrupted?’” WinBuzzer reported the remarks on October 20, 2025.
The distinction is between two kinds of risk. One is capital-market risk: money may be poured into AI ventures at valuations that prove unjustified. The other is operating-model risk: AI may let customers or competitors accomplish work differently, weakening the economics of a traditional business. Gray’s point is that assessing the first risk does not answer the second.
Which established industries could be exposed?
Rules-based professional work
The 2025 report singled out law and accounting as examples of rules-based fields that could be vulnerable. The underlying concern is that work organized around structured information and repeatable processes may be changed by AI tools. Gray’s warning does not establish that professional judgment, client relationships or regulatory responsibilities will disappear, nor does it quantify how much work might shift.
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Services, software and vehicle-related businesses
In later remarks, Gray broadened the examples. At Blackstone’s May 19, 2026 Annual LP Meeting, he named professional services, information services, software, auto repair and insurance as areas facing potential disruption. Blackstone published a transcript of the remarks on June 5, 2026. The examples are not a ranked list, and they do not show that disruption has already occurred.
Reuters’ February 3, 2026 account connected autonomous vehicles with possible changes to auto insurance and collision repair. The same report described sandwich shops and apartment complexes as comparatively less exposed examples Gray had cited. Those contrasts are illustrative, not a general measure of risk for every company in those sectors. Reuters reported Gray’s comments at WSJ Invest Live.
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How Blackstone says it is responding
Put disruption risk into investment decisions
WinBuzzer reported that Blackstone had moved AI risk analysis to the forefront of its investment memos. That detail was attributed to the report and was not independently confirmed in the other sources cited here. It nonetheless illustrates how Gray’s warning translates into an investor’s question: could AI alter the demand, costs or competitive position of a company being evaluated?
Look beyond model-company winners
Gray has also described investment opportunities in electricity, data centers and related infrastructure needed to support AI. Reuters reported that Blackstone invests in data centers and power infrastructure, and that Gray sees infrastructure as a way to participate without having to predict which AI model companies will win. At the May 2026 LP meeting, he likewise discussed infrastructure opportunities alongside disruption risks to existing businesses. This is Blackstone’s investment framing, not a guarantee that infrastructure investments will succeed.
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Help portfolio companies apply AI to work
In a May 6, 2026 interview transcript, Blackstone described a deployment company involving Anthropic and investment firms intended to help portfolio businesses apply enterprise AI to workflows such as marketing compliance, financial reporting and customer engagement. Gray characterized getting AI diffused into company operations as a key challenge. This is Blackstone’s account of its initiative; it does not independently establish the initiative’s effectiveness. Blackstone published the interview transcript.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the warning does—and does not—establish
Reuters reported that Blackstone had $1.27 trillion in assets under management in its February 3, 2026 coverage. That is a dated figure reported at that time, not a current audited total. Gray’s position gives his warning weight as an investor’s view, but scale does not turn a risk assessment into a forecast.
- Gray is warning about potential changes to incumbent businesses as well as the possibility of overinvestment in AI companies.
- The examples he has named range from law and accounting to software, insurance and auto repair; they indicate areas to examine, not a definitive ranking of winners and losers.
- The cited reports and transcripts provide no numerical forecast for job losses, company failures or the timing and scale of disruption.
- Blackstone’s own descriptions include both potential downside for exposed businesses and opportunity in AI infrastructure and deployment.
For readers following the financial implications, the practical takeaway is to treat “AI bubble” and “AI disruption” as separate questions. A company can be affected by changing technology even if AI startups are not overvalued; conversely, an industry’s exposure to AI does not prove that every business in it will fail.
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