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Artificial intelligence is the main topic of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Fabrice Cofrini | AFP/Getty Images
Of all the corporate buzzwords, artificial intelligence is certainly one that was on the lips of every major corporate leader at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Many CEOs of prominent companies and investors in industries spanning financial services and marketing have spoken about the potential of artificial intelligence technology. Here’s a selection of quotes from some of the top corporate leaders who attended the WEF Annual Meeting this week:
Mubadala CEO Khaldun Al Mubarak
Khaldun Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, told CNBC that he thinks the world has not yet fully realized the extent of the changes that artificial intelligence will bring to all aspects of human life:
“The demand is going to be extremely high in terms of using this technology. So the technology, the AI capability, which is the infrastructure side of it — whether it’s power, whether it’s transmission, whether it’s energy, but also all forms of technology, energy technology that will help drive that huge demand, I would also added to that the construction of data centers, the creation of chips,” he said.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers
Larry Summers, President Emeritus and Professor of Harvard University, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Larry Summers, an American economist who served as the 71st U.S. Treasury Secretary, said in a discussion moderated by CNBC that a “moment of stunning technological opportunity” — including new artificial intelligence systems — is fueling unprecedented innovation in fields such as medicine:
“I believe that artificial intelligence will eventually be connected to the Internet like a computer is to a calculator. This is a moment of stunning technological opportunity. This does not mean that everything will automatically be fine … This moment is an epic challenge for the governments of my country and governments everywhere,” he said.
Nicola Mendelsohn from Meta
Nicola Mendelsohn, Head of Meta’s Global Business Group.
Holly Adams | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nicola Mendelsohn, head of the global business group at parent company Facebook Metasaid the tech giant’s advertisers are already seeing a return on their investment in artificial intelligence.
“Most of our advertisers are using one of our products or our set of product preferences… So AI is at the heart of everything, especially generative AI, which is also coming to the fore,” she said.
Edelman CEO Richard Edelman
Edelman boss Richard Edelman said he believes AI has the potential to improve worker skills and productivity, but warned of the risk that AI will be “rejected” if business leaders fail to upskill staff:
“The biggest risk is that AI will be rejected… We need to embrace that by making sure everyone is retrained. I do this in our company like crazy. You should use it. You need to try it. I think artificial intelligence is a great hope for optimism because it will improve our ability to work, and it will help you be smarter, better, and faster.
Randstad CEO Sander van’t Noordende
Sander van’t Noordende, CEO of Human Resources Randstadwarned of the risk of job disruption due to artificial intelligence, saying that he sees the greatest danger to jobs in design and administration:
“If you look at the jobs that are going to disappear, anything that has ‘clerk’ or ‘designer’, ‘executive assistants,’ it’s very much under pressure.” (There are) a lot of new jobs in technology, security, artificial intelligence… There are going to be new jobs and there’s a lot of work to be done in healthcare, technology, hospitality, all kinds of jobs where AI isn’t working really helps,” he said.
General Director of Mistral Artur Mensch
Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI firm Mistral, said there is a competitive race between the world’s governments for AI leadership:
“This is an industrial revolution. It will change our industries in the next 10 years. And we need to — the industry needs to — embrace that as quickly as possible because it’s actually a competitive market… It’s been interesting to talk to the Administration, who are also looking for sovereign solutions that we can provide, so that’s both a challenge and an opportunity, I b would say that it shows that you If you’re not thinking about AI today and how it will change your business, you’re doing it wrong.”
Mensch also talked about the technological advances that will take place in the AI industry this year, predicting that the world will move away from language models such as OpenAI’s GPT to more comprehensive systems:
“I think the emphasis should be shifted to systems. Models are part of systems, but systems are linked to data, linked to tools, able to actually do things on your behalf, able to act in an agentic way … That’s where it This also means that the industry that uses it will use his experience in these systems,” he added.
Mistral is backed by the American technology giant Microsoft — who is also an investor in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei
Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei told CNBC on Tuesday that he sees AI tools eventually becoming better than humans at almost every task:
“At some point, we will arrive at artificial intelligence systems that are better than almost all humans at almost all tasks. The term I used for this in my recently written essay is data center genius land. It’s kind of a catchphrase for all the power and the positive things and all the potential negative things that I think we’re likely to get in the next two to three years,” he said.
Anthropic is a competitor to OpenAI. He counts the likes Amazon and Google as investors.
Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn
Lloyds Banking Group CEO Charlie Nunn applauded the UK government announcement last week’s bold plan to expand the nation’s computing infrastructure to spur domestic AI development:
“Artificial intelligence is at the core of what we do. I really welcome what the government has just done. Keir Starmer has said that artificial intelligence is a big part of the future. We certainly think this is true in the financial services industry. It allows us to protect customers, help them get And I think the exciting part that’s coming up is that it’s going to allow us to really differentiate what we can do is allow customers to have a different experience with their banking services and their financial providers services. This is a great opportunity for us to grow,” he said.
General Director Denis Machuel
Denis Machuel, CEO of HR group Adecco, told CNBC on Wednesday that he sees artificial intelligence leading to increased productivity in the global workforce:
“This is both an opportunity and a responsibility. This is an opportunity because it will lead to higher productivity, lead to more innovation and certainly growth,” he said.
