Name: Tech CEOs eye real returns from AI
Uploaded: 2026-01-26T18:51:50+00:00
Duration: 477 s

Speakers

Jake Loosararian — Founder and CEO, Gecko Robotics

Sridhar Ramaswamy — CEO, Snowflake

Rohit Kapoor — CEO, EXL

Summary

A CNBC panel at Davos with Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian, and EXL CEO Rohit Kapoor discussed whether AI investments are producing real ROI. The CEOs debated AI market froth, the continued focus on infrastructure, and where enterprise ROI may emerge, with 2026 seen as a possible inflection point for enterprise-wide AI adoption. Concrete examples included Snowflake's internal AI coding productivity, customer savings, and EXL's healthcare payment-integrity work.

Panel debated AI ROI and market froth.
Jake Loosararian sees continued focus on AI infrastructure but warns of hype.
He favors AI and robotics for blue-collar and industrial use cases.
Sridhar Ramaswamy says AI coding agents are improving Snowflake's software deployment.
He cites concrete customer ROI examples from Snowflake clients.
Rohit Kapoor says enterprise AI ROI has been delayed by bolt-on implementations.
He sees 2026 as a possible enterprise AI inflection point.
EXL's healthcare payment-integrity AI work has saved payers billions.

Ideas

Jake Loosararian Founder and CEO, Gecko Robotics 1:03

AI infrastructure focus continues, but be selective.

Jake sees a hyperfocus on AI infrastructure that will drive the AI conversation toward ROI and separate winners from losers. He does not think the investment cycle is done over the next 12 months, though he warns there is froth and that only companies able to produce real ROI will win.

Jake Loosararian Founder and CEO, Gecko Robotics 1:59

Industrial AI and robotics drive organic ROI.

Jake argues the more durable AI ROI will come from applying robotics and AI to physical, blue-collar jobs, where much of the data does not exist and Silicon Valley has been slow to focus. He says the companies that improve how people actually run industrial operations are the ones investors should look at.

Sridhar Ramaswamy CEO, Snowflake 3:23

Snowflake sees concrete AI ROI today.

Sridhar says the macro question about ROI on GPUs, data centers, and power is less relevant to Snowflake than how AI affects its own business. He says AI coding agents have made software development and deployment 10 times faster, and customer examples including a $10 million savings and a field-service chatbot show AI is already generating concrete ROI. This supports a positive company-specific view.

Rohit Kapoor CEO, EXL 5:47

Enterprise AI ROI inflection may hit 2026.

Rohit says AI efficacy is proven, but enterprise-wide ROI has been delayed because companies are applying AI as a bolt-on rather than redesigning underlying processes. He thinks 2025's expected inflection did not happen, but 2026 could be the year when enterprise AI adoption really shifts and begins delivering P&L-level returns.

Rohit Kapoor CEO, EXL 6:45

EXL monetizes AI healthcare payment integrity.

Rohit highlights EXL's healthcare payment-integrity work as a concrete AI ROI example: 5% of paid claims involve fraud, waste, or abuse, and EXL uses AI on a 10-15 year data lake to identify anomalous reimbursement patterns and replicate findings across the system. He says this has helped payers save tens of billions, giving EXL a differentiated AI-driven value proposition.

This CNBC video, published January 26, 2026, features Jake Loosararian, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Rohit Kapoor discussing AIQ, Industrial robotics, SNOW, Enterprise AI, EXLS. 5 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Jake Loosararian, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Rohit Kapoor · Tickers: AIQ, Industrial robotics, SNOW, Enterprise AI, EXLS

Tech CEOs eye real returns from AI

Summary

Ideas

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