I spent the week with tech CEOs. Here’s what they’re talking about
Fabricio Bloisi, CEO of Prosus NV, during a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, January 23, 2025. The annual Davos meeting, attended by political leaders, senior executives and celebrities, is held between 20 and 24 January. Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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DAVOS, Switzerland — I spent the week talking with tech executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos about their priorities for the year ahead and the big themes they see shaping investor sentiment.
Like last year, artificial intelligence dominated the conference. But this year, the debate has moved beyond artificial intelligence models or which chatbot is better to how businesses will adopt the technology and what developments are on the horizon.
All of this could be key to the revenue and share prices of the world’s biggest tech firms.
Enterprise AI adoption
Adoption of AI by businesses will increase this year, but the approach will be significantly different from 2025. Many companies were doing pilot projects with artificial intelligence last year that did not go into full production.
Later, businesses were adopting AI, such as chatbots provided by Google. MicrosoftOpenAI et al. There was a fear of missing out, or FOMO, CEO Dowson Tong said. Tencent‘s cloud group told CNBC in an interview this week.
Instead, businesses will be more selective about the type of AI they adopt.
“I think when we talk to customers this year, they’re much more pragmatic. I think they’re past the FOMO stage,” Tong said. “And I think most of our customers today are much more specific.”
Raj Sharma, EY’s global managing partner for growth and innovation, said businesses will need to reimagine all processes that can be done with AI. “That’s when you’ll start to see the value,” Sharma told CNBC in an interview.
Agent AI
It was one of the buzzwords of 2025 and is set to stay front and center. Agency AI generally refers to the concept of artificial intelligence systems that can perform tasks on behalf of humans. The ultimate goal is to have advanced agents operating autonomously with little user interaction.
Technology executives told me that intermediaries have been implemented but with varying degrees of scale and capability. It also depends on which industry you are applying to. Some uses of agents in business perform simple processes, while others execute more complex workflows.
“I think these agents are not autonomous. I don’t think we’ve reached a point where we can replace a human employee,” said Uljan Sharka, CEO of startup Domyn.
The most optimistic person about the technology was Fabricio Bloisi, CEO of Prosus. Prosus currently has 30,000 agents working, he said, and agent-run companies could emerge in the next five years.
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration and I don’t think it’s a hope,” Bloisi said in an interview with CNBC’s Dan Murphy and me this week.
Geopolitics
The impact of geopolitical volatility has been the subject of many conversations I’ve had this week.
“What we don’t talk about in the AI world, and which will become a big problem, a big deterrent or a big accelerator, is where the AI is. [geopolitical] Here are the issues,” said EY’s Sharma.
China’s technological advances in fields such as artificial intelligence and chips were also among the topics discussed. In an interview with Steve Kovach for CNBC’s new podcast The Tech Downland, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said China’s artificial intelligence models It’s just a few months behind US and Western models.
Physical Artificial Intelligence
We expect physical AI to be on the list of tech buzzwords this year. The term refers to applications where artificial intelligence takes physical form, from robotics to driverless cars. My experience in Davos showed how realistic this effort had become: At a dinner party, a robot was sitting right next to the table.
EY’s Sharma called physical AI the “next wave” and predicted it could be five to six times the market size of agency AI in five to six years.
Meanwhile, Sassine Ghazi, CEO of semiconductor design tool company Synopsys, said he initially expected physical AI to arrive “five-plus” years later, but it’s coming “much faster.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says artificial intelligence robotics is a It’s a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity for Europe, as the region has an “incredibly strong” industrial manufacturing base.
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