Artificial intelligence may disrupt software, advertising and e-commerce as profoundly as the internet reshaped the physical economy, UBS Americas Chief Investment Officer Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi said. She warned that investors may be underestimating the disruption risk as AI coding affects traditional software and autonomous agents change how digital businesses reach customers.
Hoffmann-Burchardi said UBS favors the physical economy over digital assets more exposed to technological change. Within AI, she identified semiconductor funds such as SMH, SOXX and XSD, along with cloud-computing funds including SKYY, WCLD and CLOU, as beneficiaries of the infrastructure buildout and said this group is driving most current earnings growth.
She said agentic AI and physical AI could each reach hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue within five to 10 years, supported in part by rising private investment.
The investment view comes as AI companies expand into advertising and commerce. OpenAI said it was testing sponsored AI agents with selected U.S. In Hoffmann-Burchardi’s framing, healthcare, biotech and pharma therefore have a dual role: protection against disruption in digital industries and exposure to the wider adoption of AI.