Is the AI boom in the US stock market about to recede? NVIDIA and Salesforce's earnings reports leave investors feeling "chilled to the bone."

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, after the recent sharp fluctuations in the US stock market, investors have been hoping that NVIDIA (NVDA.US) earnings report could inject new vitality into the AI sector, but the actual situation did not meet expectations.

The performance of this chip manufacturing giant failed to ignite market enthusiasm; although its earnings exceeded expectations, they did not match previous stunning performances, and the outlook for the next quarter is mixed. Although NVIDIA alleviated some pressure on its stock price since the rise of AI startup DeepSeek earlier this year, the significant question of whether AI investments can be sustained remains unresolved. After the earnings report was released, NVIDIA's stock price only rose about 1% in pre-market trading on Thursday.

"A few months ago, we were quite confident about the growth prospects of AI," said Brian Mulberry, a client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management. "Now, market expectations have become more dispersed, and the volatility of related AI stocks is beginning to reflect this."

The outlook for the AI services sector is even more uncertain. Salesforce (CRM.US), which launched its so-called AI agents last year, saw its stock drop over 3% in pre-market trading after providing disappointing performance guidance. The company stated that its "Agentforce," designed to complete customer service tasks without human guidance, is expected to make a limited contribution to revenue this year.

"Salesforce seems to be encountering some difficulties," said Chris Brigati, Chief Investment Officer at SWBC. The earnings reports from NVIDIA and Salesforce suggest that "the AI boom may not be as strong as in 2023 or 2024, although the overall trend remains positive and there is still room for growth."

However, Brigati remains optimistic about NVIDIA's market leadership in the AI field, stating that any pullback in the stock could be a good buying opportunity.

As these earnings reports are released, the AI sector is in a delicate period. The rise of lower-cost AI models—DeepSeek—not only poses a challenge to the United States' dominance in this emerging field but also raises questions about the massive AI expenditures of enterprises. Meanwhile, the technology industry is also impacted by the uncertainty of President Trump's tariff policies on the US economy and inflation.

An index tracking the "seven giants," including NVIDIA, has fallen 11% from its peak in December last year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index has also dropped nearly 5% from last week's record closing level.

Despite tech giants like Meta Platforms (META.US) and Amazon (AMZN.US) reiterating that they will continue to increase capital expenditure plans this year, the stock prices of NVIDIA and other hardware manufacturers remain clouded.

Krishna Chintalapalli, a portfolio manager at Parnassus Investments, stated that NVIDIA's solid performance will push some significant questions surrounding the AI boom back by three to six months"But the long-term debate has not been resolved," he said, "issues such as the sustainability of spending, monetization of large language models (LLM), and corporate adoption rates still exist. While these are all progressing, we are still in the early stages."

After the initial gains brought by the AI boom have largely been realized, "we are looking for long-term certainty," he added, "which may not necessarily come from NVIDIA, but from software companies and corporate IT departments; once they start to see the actual returns brought by AI, it could open up the next cycle."

"The real concern is what the industry will look like in 3-5 years."