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Artificial intelligence is the topic of the day at this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, a major gathering of political and corporate leaders, in Davos, Switzerland.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP/Getty Images
Of all the corporate buzzwords, artificial intelligence is by far the one that has been on the lips of every major corporate leader at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Numerous CEOs of renowned companies and investors in industries ranging from financial services to marketing spoke about the potential of AI technology. Here is a compilation of quotes from some of the top corporate leaders who attended the WEF annual meeting this week:
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Mubadala
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, told CNBC that he believes the world has not yet fully recognized the extent of the change that AI will bring to all aspects of human life:
“Demand is going to be profoundly high in terms of enabling that technology. So the technology, the enabling of AI, which is the infrastructure side, whether it’s power, whether it’s transmission, whether it’s power, but also all forms of technology, energy technology that are going to help feed this enormous demand, I would also add to that the construction of data centers and chips,” he said.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers
Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | fake images
Larry Summers, an American economist who was the 71st US Treasury secretary, said on a panel moderated by CNBC that “a moment of astonishing technological possibilities” – including emerging AI systems – is driving unprecedented innovation in fields such as medical science:
“I believe that, ultimately, artificial intelligence will come to the Internet as the computer came to the calculator. It is a time of astonishing technological possibilities. That doesn’t mean everything will automatically be fine… It is a time of epic challenge for the governments of my country and around the world,” he said.
Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman
Edelman boss Richard Edelman said he believes AI has the potential to upskill workers and accelerate productivity, but warned of the risk of AI being “shunned” if business leaders don’t upskill staff. :
“The biggest risk is that AI will be rejected… We need to get this accepted by making sure everyone is retrained. I’m doing this in our company like crazy. You have to use this. You have to try it. I think AI is the big hope for optimism. I think it is the great opportunity, because it will improve our viability. It is your partner and your enabler to be smarter, better and faster,” he said.
Sander van’t Noordende, CEO of Randstad
Sander van’t Noordende, CEO of a human resources company Randstadwarned of the risks of job disruption posed by AI, saying it believes jobs in design and administration are most at risk:
“If you look at the jobs that will sort of disappear, anything that has ‘clerk,’ or ‘designer,’ ‘executive assistants,’ that’s very under pressure. (There are) a lot of new jobs in technology, in security, in “AI… There will be new jobs, and there are a lot of jobs that still need to be done, in healthcare, in technology, in hospitality, all kinds of jobs that AI doesn’t really help with,” he said.
Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral
Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI firm Mistral, said there is a competitive race underway among the world’s governments to lead the way in AI:
“This is an industrial revolution. It is going to reshape our industries in the next 10 years. And we need (the industry needs) to adopt it as quickly as possible because it is indeed a competitive market… It has been interesting to talk with administrations that are also looking for solutions sovereignties that we are the only ones capable of offering. So, I would say that it is both a challenge and an opportunity, but effectively, what it shows is that if you don’t think about AI today and how it is going to change your business, it will. “You’re doing wrong.”
Mensch also talked about the technological advances coming to the AI industry this year and predicted that the world moving away from language models like OpenAI’s GPT to more comprehensive systems:
“I think the focus should shift to systems. Models are part of systems, but systems are connected to data, connected to tools, capable of doing things on its behalf, capable of acting agentively… That’s where it’s at. where this is changing. It also means that the industry that is adopting it is going to distill its experience into those systems,” he added.
Charlie Nunn, chief executive of Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group Chief executive Charlie Nunn welcomed the UK government’s decision. advertisement last week of a bold plan to expand the national computing infrastructure to boost national AI development:
“AI is fundamental to what we do. I really welcome what the government has just done. Keir Starmer talked about AI being a bigger part of the future. We definitely think that’s true in financial services. It allows us to protect customers, help them get more out of their financial services. And I think the exciting part coming is that it will allow us to really differentiate what we can do, allow customers to get different experiences from banking and from their financial services provider. It is a great growth opportunity for. us,” he said.
