Before You Buy AI Stocks, Ask Yourself One Question: Are You Actually Paying for AI?

I pay $100 a month for AI. My wife doesn’t know.

Last September, I started using Claude Pro — an AI assistant. First impression was “eh, is this worth $20 a month?” So I bought prepaid credits to test it out. Turns out it was way better than I expected. Switched to the $20 monthly plan within weeks. Then $100/month. Now I can’t write a blog post or build an app without it. At work I don’t use AI (company policy), so my day job hasn’t changed. But my side projects? Completely different universe.

So when I see headlines like “AI stocks are hot” and “semiconductors still have room to run,” I do check something. But it’s not a stock chart. It’s my credit card statement.

When the bandwagon arrives, the ride is almost over

AI stocks. Yeah, I think about them. A lot, honestly.

But what I’m watching isn’t charts or P/E ratios. It’s who’s doing the talking.

When people who already invest are saying “AI is a long-term play” — fine. That’s just regular people saying regular things. No reason to panic. The alarm goes off when people who never talk about stocks suddenly start asking “should I buy AI stocks?”

I’ve seen this movie before.

Back in the early 2010s, GungHo Online — the company behind Puzzle & Dragons, which was basically Japan’s Candy Crush on steroids — saw its stock explode. People who’d never once mentioned investing in their lives were suddenly going “have you seen GungHo’s stock price?” Then Bitcoin. Friends who couldn’t tell you what a blockchain was started asking “so what do you think about Bitcoin?” Both times, if I remember right, the chatter peaked pretty close to the actual price peak.

And then both crashed.

I’m not saying I was smart enough to avoid them. I just froze. Couldn’t pull the trigger on something everyone was already raving about. Partly fear, partly stubbornness. But I’d already made peace with it — if you missed the early move, you missed it. That’s the loss.

I don’t really talk about stocks at work, so nobody’s pitched me on AI stocks directly. But scrolling social media, I can smell it. People who’ve never posted about investing are suddenly sharing AI stock tips. That vibe. You know the one.

It’s like this: imagine there’s a band that only the nerds in your class listened to. You’d geek out about them after school, just your small group. Then one day the popular kids start wearing the band’s merch. Something dies inside you. That feeling.

When the bandwagon investors show up, you’re near the top. Music, stocks — same pattern.

”I found it first” was a delusion

I’m talking a big game about my bandwagon-detection filter, but I should probably mention: I’ve been the sucker too.

Back when I traded individual stocks, I was convinced I’d found a hidden gem. Nobody was talking about it yet. This was going to be my big win. I could feel it.

Result: ¥2 million loss (about $14,000). Cut my losses with shaking hands.

I wrote about that day in another post, but the money wasn’t even the worst part. What really stung was realizing my “hidden gem” was being analyzed by tens of thousands of investors already. I wasn’t the clever early bird. I was just another latecomer who thought he was special.

If you missed the early move, you missed it. Accept the loss.

That sounds graceful, right? Honestly it’s just my personality. I physically can’t get on board with something after everyone else already likes it. “Everyone says it’s great so I should like it too” — my brain rejects that on a cellular level. This contrarian streak accidentally became my best risk filter in investing. Grateful for my own stubbornness, I guess. Weird thing to be thankful for.

So what am I actually doing about AI stocks?

Not buying individual ones. Period.

Which AI company wins in the end? I have no clue. OpenAI? Anthropic? Google staging a comeback? Some startup nobody’s heard of yet flipping the table? No idea. And neither do you. And neither does that YouTuber with the confident thumbnail.

If you’re going to buy individual AI stocks, you’d better know that space inside and out, with a conviction that comes from your gut, not from a headline. Because when the stock drops — and it will drop at some point — the regret hits different when your reason for buying was “I saw it on Twitter.” You can’t be angry at anyone. You can’t blame anyone. You just sit there in this awful limbo of “whose fault is this?” I know because I sat there with ¥2 million in losses.

Index funds though? Totally different game. The AI companies that win get pulled into the index automatically. The ones that lose get kicked out. I don’t have to be right about which horse wins. I just keep contributing to the index every month and let it sort itself out. I hold FANG+ too, so I’m already getting AI exposure. Not only AI companies in there, but still.

I started index investing about 8 years ago, which was actually pretty early for Japan — back then most people had no idea what an index fund was. That’s my bandwagon filter working in reverse: I got in before the crowd showed up. And through the index, I’m already riding the AI wave. Not flashy, but it’s working.

“Doesn’t it kill you that NVIDIA doubled in a year?”

Nah.

Because past-me never even considered buying NVIDIA. It wasn’t on my radar. You can’t regret a choice you never had. If I’d been choosing between NVIDIA and Intel back then and picked Intel — yeah, I’d need a week in bed. But a choice that didn’t exist? Can’t lose sleep over a door you never saw.

The “are you actually paying for it?” test

If a younger coworker asked me “should I buy AI stocks?” — here’s what I’d say first.

“Are you paying for AI right now?”

ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, whatever. Are you spending your own money on a subscription? And do you genuinely feel like you’re getting your money’s worth?

If not — don’t touch AI stocks. You’d be buying based on vibes. And when the price drops, you’ll have nothing to hold onto. No conviction. No anchor. Just that sinking feeling and nobody to blame.

But if you’re deep in it — paying monthly, using it every day, genuinely convinced this technology is changing things — then sure, go for it.

The reason is kind of dumb. If you truly believe in something and the stock tanks, you can think “the market just hasn’t caught up yet.” You can blame everyone else for being clueless. That sounds petty, but hear me out.

When you hold a stock you don’t personally believe in and it drops, the damage isn’t just financial. Your stomach stays clenched all day. You’re sneaking glances at your phone during meetings. And because your buy reason was “everyone said it was good,” there’s nobody to be angry at. But when your buy reason is “I use this daily, I pay for it, I know the value” — you can weather the dip with “the world will catch up.” That gap in mental resilience? Huge.

I pay for Amazon. I pay for Netflix. I pay $100/month for Claude. For each one, my wallet has already answered the question “is this worth it?”

AI feels overheated right now. Prices might dip. But here’s my personal take — and it’s just mine: AI is going to follow the same path as smartphones.

Think back to when smartphones first appeared. The gap between people who had one and people who didn’t kept widening. Train schedules, restaurant reviews, weather — smartphone users had instant access. Everyone else didn’t. People who said “I don’t need one” eventually all got one.

AI is on that same track. What you can do with it grows every week. When I first tried Claude on prepaid credits, I thought “useful, but I could live without it.” After switching to monthly and actually leaning into it, there’s no going back. Blog drafts, app code, brainstorming — collaborating with AI is just faster. That shift from “nice to have” to “can’t work without it” happened to me personally. That matters.

The gap between people using AI and people who aren’t looks small today. It won’t stay small. Eventually, paying for AI will be as normal as having a phone plan. Individuals and companies alike.

I went from prepaid to $100/month. I’m living proof of that adoption curve. So I keep holding the index. I don’t need to bet on a single AI company. The wave carries the index, and I’m on it.

To the version of me who lost ¥2 million

If I could tell past-me one thing:

“If you believe in the value, hold through the drop.”

Portfolio’s up now, so.

…Easy to say in hindsight, though.

This article reflects personal experience and is for informational purposes only — not investment advice. All investment decisions are your own responsibility.