Yahoo Finance's exclusive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland continues as Yahoo Finance sat down with top leaders to discuss the impact of AI. Here are some of the highlights.
Former Microsoft President & CEO Bill Gates (00:00:03)
Former Microsoft (MSFT) President and CEO Bill Gates discusses how when there are new technologies, they can be used to achieve both positive and negative things. “AI can be used… for cyberattacks, it can be used to design a bioterrorism weapon…. Whenever we have new technologies, they’re used to achieve positive goals and… for some challenging things as well,” Gates notes. “When we computers, books, video games... we had to think… what’s the tasteful, appropriate use to just get the good and minimize those… negative things.”
Nasdaq CEO & President Adena Friedman (00:00:31)
Nasdaq (NDAQ) CEO and President Adena Friedman explains that “AI-driven companies, AI-enabled companies, and AI companies themselves, so those companies that can really help transform business, I think that those are the types of companies you’ll see more and more of coming out into the public markets.”
Meta Head of Global Business Nicola Mendelsohn (00:00:49)
Meta (META) Head of Global Business Nicola Mendelsohn discusses how Meta’s AI products have benefited advertisers. “Back in ’22, we brought together all of the products that we have that are actually powered by AI into our Meta Advantage suite. And what were seeing now, is that our advertisers on the whole are using at least one of those products. And the reason they’re doing that is because it’s giving them better targeting and better performance,” Mendelsohn explains.
Verizon Chairman & CEO Hans Vestberg (00:01:14)
Verizon (VZ) Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg notes that “generative AI will be important for our... business.” “When it comes to AI, especially the generative AI and things like that, I think at the edge of the network it’s going to be very important to have AI to take quick decisions, very close to the... end use, to the customer or the enterprise.”
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet (00:01:41)
Accenture (ACN) CEO Julie Sweet explains “what’s really important is to understand how is the gen AI going to change your talent, what are the new skills, and then… how do you make sure that we can bring people along the journey to get those new jobs.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff (00:01:57)
Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff notes the “exciting opportunities” that come with AI. “I’m trying to tell stories and explain to customers what we’re seeing with AI. And I think that as we have been… traveling around we see so many exciting opportunities with AI that customers are going to get much higher margins,” Benioff says. “Right now AI can really… make people a lot better.”
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins (00:02:16)
Cisco (CSCO) CEO Chuck Robbins discusses how AI will impact the company. “I think it’s incredibly early… with AI right now,” Robbins says. “As this AI thing explodes, my expectation is that our infrastructure equipment that goes with it, will also go up.
KPMG US Chair & CEO Paul Knopp (00:02:26)
KPMG US Chair & CEO Paul Knopp explains that “76 percent of millennials and Gen Z said that generative AI already impacts their professional lives in a big way and that they’re not concerned about job displacement. But I think that really means is they understand the technology and they also know that it’s the future. And that it’s actually mainstream at this point.” “It really is getting to the point where we’re nearing industrialization and a lot of companies are already using it in certain applications of their business,” Knopp adds.
Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan (00:02:59)
Novartis (NVS) CEO Vasant Narasimhan explains how AI will impact the company’s drug development. “Impacting the next five years, is how AI is going to impact many of our productivity efforts in drug development. How fast can we generate new trial protocols, how fast can we work with regulators, how fast can we look at patient safety, look at large patient data sets,” Narasimhan notes. “It is generative AI, but maybe not the most cutting-edge generative AI.”
Vista Equity Partners Founder, Chairman, & CEO Robert Smith (00:03:18)
Vista Equity Partners Founder, Chairman, and CEO Robert Smith discusses how AI “is an enabling technology just like other enabling technologies have come and… ultimately been infused into the fabric of... our companies.” “We’ve been… engaging in artificial intelligence for… well over a decade and implementing those in products and solutions and services. Gen AI gives another gear to that,” Smith adds.
