Affirm CEO: Market wrong to bet AI spending will stop

Affirm's CEO Max Levchin appeared on Yahoo Finance to argue that recent market skepticism about AI capital expenditure is misplaced. He acknowledged real concerns around data centers—noise, power consumption, neighborhood impact—but maintained that spending on AI infrastructure will continue to rise.

Levchin outlined how Affirm has built machine learning models trained on its own credit data to identify borrowers that older models rejected, and stressed that explainability in credit decisions is now a legal requirement, not optional. He also addressed how agentic AI—autonomous shopping agents—could reshape demand for consumer credit going forward.