Sierra CEO Bret Taylor on the future of AI: We're at the beginning of the curve

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  January 22, 2026 at 13:18  |  8:12  |  CNBC
Speakers
Bret Taylor — Co-founder and CEO, Sierra; Chairman, OpenAI Board

Summary

Bret Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Sierra and chairman of the OpenAI board, discusses the state of AI adoption at Davos. He believes AI is at the beginning of its curve, similar to the internet in 1996, with applied AI seeing strong adoption in software engineering and customer service. He highlights opportunities in sales, legal, and back-office automation, while noting enterprise software disruption and the likelihood of a bubble-like correction and consolidation in AI over the next few years. He also briefly addresses the Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI and its potential IPO.

  • Bret Taylor says AI is at the beginning of its adoption curve, comparable to 1996 internet.
  • Applied AI adoption is strongest in software engineering and customer service.
  • He sees off-the-shelf AI solutions as key for enterprise adoption.
  • Conversational AI agents will impact call centers, sales, legal, KYC, and back-office processes.
  • AI agents are disrupting enterprise software and raising questions about switching costs.
  • He expects a bubble-like correction and consolidation in AI over coming years.
  • He calls the Musk lawsuit against OpenAI baseless and says OpenAI may go public eventually.
  • He remains optimistic about AI's long-term economic impact.
Ideas
Bret Taylor Co-founder and CEO, Sierra; Chairman, OpenAI Board 1:29
AI adoption is at beginning of curve.
AI is at the beginning of its adoption curve, similar to 1996 for the internet. The impact will be huge across commerce, search, payments, and many workflows, but infrastructure buildout, corporate adoption, and regulatory evolution take time. He is an AI optimist and expects more applied AI adoption this year, while acknowledging bubble-like competition, correction, and consolidation over the next few years.
AI-SECTOR HIGH
Bret Taylor Co-founder and CEO, Sierra; Chairman, OpenAI Board 2:23
Applied AI for legal is promising.
Harvey is doing applied AI for legal, an area where companies can buy off-the-shelf solutions. Legal contract review and information analytics are intellectually simple but costly to build from scratch, making them attractive for AI automation.
Legal AI MED
Bret Taylor Co-founder and CEO, Sierra; Chairman, OpenAI Board 4:40
AI agents disrupt software landscape.
AI agents are the atomic unit of process, spanning departments and systems of record, which is disruptive to the software industry and shuffles the deck for anchor tenants and switching costs. The future of software is uncertain now that AI agents can write software, though incumbents may still benefit by pivoting into AI.
IGV MED
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This CNBC video, published January 22, 2026, features Bret Taylor discussing AI-SECTOR, Legal AI, IGV. 3 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Bret Taylor  · Tickers: AI-SECTOR, Legal AI, IGV