Focus for Tech Stock Investors: Goldman Sachs TMT Conference Kicks Off Today, Key Highlights Explained

Goldman Sachs' Communacopia+ Technology Summit 2025 opened on September 8 in San Francisco, becoming the core focus for technology investors over the next four days.

The conference is traditionally seen as a market barometer due to its significant industry influence. This year's event brings together C-level executives from over 250 companies, whose speeches and statements will provide important clues for investors to assess the AI investment boom, the competitive landscape of the chip industry, and the prospects of key areas such as software and the internet.

After a strong rebound driven by generative AI in the first half of the year, tech stocks have entered a consolidation phase, and the market is urgently seeking new catalysts. According to Goldman Sachs TMT expert Peter Callahan, the generative AI story has begun to "consolidate," and market sentiment has shifted from "chasing gains" to "buying on dips." Therefore, whether this conference can inject new vitality into the AI narrative through presentations from giants like Meta, Google, and OpenAI will be the biggest highlight for the market.

Additionally, the story of the internet sector remains strong, but following excellent performance in the second quarter earnings reports, concerns about "premature realization" of growth and macro cyclicality have begun to emerge. Sentiment in the software industry hit a low during the summer, primarily affected by "generative AI anxiety." The performance in the hardware and communications sectors has been mixed, while the IT services industry continues to lose favor.

On the first day of the conference, speeches from executives at Mastercard and Uber painted a positive picture for consumer prospects, both indicating that they have not seen signs of a downgrade in consumer spending. The presentations from CEOs or CFOs of major companies like Nvidia, Uber, and Netflix will set the tone for market trends this week.

AI Boom Enters Consolidation Phase, Market Seeks New Narrative

The core question for investors in the AI sector right now is: What’s next?

Goldman Sachs analysis suggests that some positive news regarding AI, such as Broadcom and Meta's outlook for 2026, has already been released ahead of time this summer. AI-themed trading has nearly doubled since the low in April, and the market needs a new storyline to drive the next round of gains.

Goldman Sachs' AI adoption tracking data also shows signs of slowing growth. The report indicates that the proportion of U.S. companies using AI to produce goods or services slightly increased to 9.7% in the third quarter (up from 9.2% in the second quarter), but the growth rate has slowed. The AI adoption rate among large enterprises even saw a slight decline in the second quarter. Data security, quality, and availability remain major barriers for companies adopting AI.

In this context, the latest developments from leading AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic regarding the scaling and commercialization of large language models are receiving significant attention. The market hopes to understand whether there are new applications emerging and being commercialized beyond the "obvious" use cases like programming and customer service.

"Silicon Valley War" Unfolds, Chip Giants Face Off

The competition in the chip sector is another major focus of this conference, especially the "Silicon Valley war" between customized ASIC chips and general-purpose GPUs The core of this debate is, as cloud service giants invest in self-developed chips, what will be the dominant form of AI computing power in the future? Just last week, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan expressed support in the earnings report for ASICs (referred to as XPU at Broadcom) gaining long-term market share among major cloud service providers.

At this conference, investors will have the opportunity to hear various viewpoints: the CEO of Broadcom representing the ASIC camp, and the CFO of Nvidia and the head of AMD's data center business representing the general GPU ecosystem will compete on stage. Additionally, the speech from the CEO of ARM will provide a key perspective for this debate.

For Nvidia, investors are focused on its transition from the Hopper architecture to the next-generation Rubin architecture, dynamics in the Chinese market, and its market positioning in sovereign AI and enterprise AI.

Software Stocks in Low Spirits, Internet Sector Under Pressure

Compared to the booming AI hardware, the software industry is experiencing a crisis of confidence.

Goldman Sachs pointed out that software stocks hit a new low in sentiment during the summer, 90% of which is related to the disruption anxiety brought by generative AI. However, recent earnings reports from companies like Snowflake, MongoDB, and CrowdStrike show accelerated growth, injecting some optimism into the market.

Investor interest is currently more focused on security, vertical software, and data infrastructure, while traditional SaaS applications are less appealing. It remains to be seen whether heavyweight CEOs from Salesforce, Workday, and others can dispel the bearish sentiment in the market during the conference.

Although the internet sector shows a solid trend, it also faces challenges. After strong second-quarter performance, the market has begun to worry about whether growth can be sustained and the tougher year-over-year comparisons in the fourth quarter.

The co-CEO of Netflix will elaborate on its content strategy and user engagement trends, while the CEO of Uber will need to provide answers regarding the resilience of its ride-hailing and food delivery business growth, as well as the long-term strategy for autonomous vehicles. On the first day of the conference, comments from Mastercard and Uber indicated that consumers remain healthy, but the overall macroeconomic uncertainty still poses a concern for investors.

Focus Companies and Market Debate

Several companies are at the center of market discussions at this conference. From the most sought-after meeting request list by investors, AI-related companies such as Broadcom, AppLovin, AMD, Microsoft, and Nvidia have replaced last year's software companies as the absolute main characters.

• Controversial Focus Stocks: Companies like Unity, Uber, IBM, and AMD are viewed by Goldman Sachs as the "most fiercely debated" stocks, with intense clashes of opinions between bulls and bears. For example, there is a clear divergence in Uber's stock price between hedge fund and long-term fund investors.

• Day One Highlights: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi pointed out that the core ride-hailing business is still experiencing "double-digit" healthy growth, with significant room for improvement in user frequency. The CFO of Unity revealed that its Vector product has begun to deliver a 15-20% improvement in customer acquisition efficiency for clients In addition, Goldman Sachs pointed out that the following companies are worth paying attention to:

• Meta: Against the backdrop of intense debate over cost and capital expenditure returns, the company's CFO's remarks will be crucial.

• Twilio: The company's stock price is highly controversial, with bulls focusing on its accelerating revenue growth over the past four consecutive quarters, while bears are concerned about its declining gross margin over the past five quarters.

• Airbnb: Its stock price has significantly lagged behind peers this year, and its CEO Brian Chesky will explain the company's transition from dealing with severe growth comparisons to its long-term growth path through 2026 and beyond.

• Applied Materials: In the context of an unclear outlook for the semiconductor equipment industry, whether its CEO can provide clearer guidance on market demand and spending pace in the advanced foundry/logistics sector will impact investor confidence