Slowing growth. Dwindling cash piles. Cannibalized business lines. Pressure points are multiplying across the artificial-intelligence boom that has propelled markets and the economy.

The cracks in the AI trade multiplied through the week, culminating in a sharp tech selloff Friday that sent the Nasdaq composite to its worst day since June and its worst month in more than a year.

The vulnerabilities in Wall Street's favorite trade have been building for months, periodically appearing around smaller companies drowning in debt. Each time, the largest firms behind America's AI build-out have reassured Wall Street by printing profits, suggesting the show will go on even in a world of higher interest rates.

This week was different. After tech stocks had treaded water for weeks, AI giant Anthropic momentarily rejuvenated investors with a filing that showed soaring revenue ahead of its planned initial public offering. But then publicly traded tech firms reported earnings -- and markets got a reality check.

First came a dissatisfying quarterly report from Alphabet, which showed that growth in Google's search-advertising business slowed -- in part because of the impact of "AI mode" queries. Traders punished the stock with a 13% decline Thursday that marked its worst day on record, hammering major Alphabet shareholders such as Berkshire Hathaway.

Then the bad tech vibes got worse. Late Thursday, Amazon reported plunging free cash flow and revenue that missed analyst estimates. American chipmaking giant Intel forecast a prolonged slowdown in personal-computer sales, pressured by memory chip prices sent skyrocketing by the AI boom.

Intel shares on Friday crashed about 30%, the worst session on record for a company that has traded on the U.S. stock market for decades. The plunge vaporized more than $15 billion in combined paper holdings by two of the company's largest shareholders: the U.S. government and Nvidia.