Artificial intelligence is the main topic at this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum – a large gathering of political and corporate leaders – in Davos, Switzerland.
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Of all the corporate buzzwords, artificial intelligence is by far the one on the lips of every major corporate leader at this year's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Many CEOs of big-name companies and investors in industries ranging from financial services to marketing have spoken out about the potential of AI technology. Here is a collection of quotes from some of the top business leaders attending the World Economic Forum's annual meeting this week:
Mubadala CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak
Khaldoun Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, told CNBC that he believes the world has not yet fully realized how much artificial intelligence will transform every aspect of human life:
“The demand is going to be very high in terms of enabling that technology. So, the technology, enabling AI, which is the infrastructure aspect of it — whether that's energy, transportation, energy, but also everything forms of technology, energy technology that “It will help feed this huge demand, and I would also add to the data center building and chip building.”
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers
Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Larry Summers, an American economist who served as the 71st US Secretary of the Treasury, said on a panel moderated by CNBC that “a moment of astonishing technological possibilities” — including emerging artificial intelligence systems — is driving unprecedented innovations in fields such as medical science. :
“I believe that artificial intelligence will be the ultimate for the Internet, as the computer was for the calculator. It is a moment of amazing technological possibility. This does not mean that everything will automatically be fine… It is a moment of epic challenge for governments in My country and governments everywhere.”
Edelman CEO Richard Edelman
Richard Edelman, president of Edelman, said he believes AI has the potential to empower workers and speed up productivity — but warned of the risk of AI “dismissal” if business leaders don’t improve employee skills:
“The biggest risk is AI rejection… We need to accept this by making sure everyone is reskilled. I'm doing this like crazy in our company. You have to use this. You have to try it. I think AI is the great hope for optimism, and I think it's a great opportunity.” Because it will improve our ability to work, it will empower you to be smarter, better and faster.
Randstad CEO Sander van't Noordeinde
Sander van't Noordeinde, CEO of Human Resources Randstadwarned of the risks of job disruption posed by artificial intelligence, saying that he sees jobs in the fields of design and management as being most at risk:
“If you look at the jobs that are kind of going away, anything that involves 'employee' or 'designer' or 'executive assistants', that's under a lot of pressure. (There are) a lot of new jobs in technology, security, AI… “There will be new jobs, and there are a lot of jobs that still need to be done, in healthcare, technology, hospitality, all kinds of jobs where AI is not really helping,” he said.
Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch
Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI company Mistral, said there is a competitive race underway among world governments to lead the way in artificial intelligence:
“This is an industrial revolution. It will reshape our industries in the next 10 years. And we need – the industry needs – to embrace it as quickly as possible because it is a really competitive market… It has been interesting to talk to departments that are also looking for sovereign solutions. We are the only ones who can Delivering it, so I would say this is a challenge and an opportunity, but what it shows effectively is that if you're not thinking about AI today and how it's going to change your business, you're doing it wrong.”
Mensch also spoke about the technological advances that will come to the AI industry this year, predicting that the world will do so Stay away from language models like OpenAI's GPT To more comprehensive systems:
“I think the focus has to shift to systems. Models are part of systems, but systems are connected to data, connected to tools, able to do things for you, able to act in an efficient way… This is where he added that this also means that the industry that… It will work to extract its experiences in those systems.
Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn
Lloyds Banking Group CEO Charlie Nunn praised the UK government advertisement Last week of a bold plan to expand the national computing infrastructure to boost the development of domestic artificial intelligence:
“AI is at the heart of 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 certainly believe that is true in financial services. It enables us to protect customers and help them get more from Their financial services and I think the exciting part that's coming is that it will enable us to really differentiate what we can do, and enable customers to have different experiences from banking and from their financial services provider we are,” he said.
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