At Humanx in Las Vegas, Tech Leaders spoke about the impact of AI on business. Speakers like Kamala Harris highlighted collaboration between the tech industry and government.
This week I attended Humanx. There, thousands of startup founders, investors and tech executives gathered in Las Vegas to discuss their final revenues and futures about their AI value proposition.
The nearly four-day meeting began with comments from former Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris, who served as “AI CZAR” during the Biden administration, was one of the few lawmakers at the event that sought stronger cooperation between the tech industry and the federal government.
The next day, attendees sat on the panel with veteran investors such as Vinod Khosla and Tim Draper, embracing Face’s Thomas Wolf and Mistral’s Arthur Mensch along with Ai Boom’s upstart. There was plenty of time to bending between booths on the convention floor where the tech giants and startups were ready to attract customers.
AI meetings can feel like dance. People are excited about the transformational power of this technology, but it is clear that they are measuring where the actual value lies.
This is my number one takeaway:
1. Patience is a virtue when it comes to ROI
The conference speakers received some advice on making long-term profits with AI.
Glean CEO Arvind Jain warned companies to set up “AI Teams” and create a roadmap for integrating technology. “Make a small bet. Don’t actually try to focus on the ROI right away,” he said. “First, focus on education and create an AI-trained workforce.”
In the sales situation, Conviction’s Sarah Guo said the company has already won “high fructose corn syrup” and enjoys the ability to send large amounts of email or spam customers over the phone.
“It really drove a lot of traction,” she said. But “actual customers unleashed it pretty quickly because it doesn’t actually meet the real needs. No one wants spam. That’s what it is.”
Still, she starts to start “purchasing products” with people, and she hopes that will continue. “That’s what I think we’ll see this year in terms of these real ROI use cases.”
2. Atmosphere and rating
AI startups have earned wild ratings, but the question is whether they’re caught up in a bubble set to burst.
Tuhin Srivastava, CEO and co-founder of AI Inference Company Baseten, said investors are essentially “betting,” according to Tuhin Srivastava, CEO and co-founder of Baseten. “I am the beneficiary,” he added.
Srivastava pointed to Anysphere, which creates a coding assistant cursor, and raised funds at a nearly $10 billion valuation earlier this month after achieving recurring revenues of $10 million per year over 12 months. Startup Codeium’s coding is raising funds at a $2.855 billion valuation after reaching an ARR of $40 million, TechCrunch reported.
At face value, these seem like massive valuations, but Srivastava says he considers it rational in the context of venture landscapes a few years ago.
“The 2021 companies were like raising $1 million in that trend, $1 billion. Think about these AI companies. They’re all making a lot of money,” he said.
He joked that some ratings were calculated with a “vibe,” but he believes they are based on actual growth potential. “You know, we probably employ 0.1% AI in the enterprise. So there’s 1000 x there.”
For businesses with little or no revenue, talent may be a valuable indicator.
A few investors surprised that companies that have acquired AI startups for strategic advantage are valuing them on a “by engineer” basis.
If you’re thinking more about talent-based evaluations, please contact me. lvaranasi@businessinsider.com.
3. This is at least one new job we see soon
Aside from a new set of fast engineers and companies’ “AI Heads,” many still wonder what the “new job” this technological change brings.
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To make AI easier to code, Vibe-Code is a highly compensated “we should expect to see a new wave of product engineers” that are highly compensated individuals familiar with product management, usually software engineering, which handles the role of overseeing new products from ideas to launch, as well as the technical details of new products.
4. Governance is a problem
AI governance is still a bit vague.
“There’s a bit of a mix of governance and regulations,” says Navrina Singh, founder and CEO of AI governance platform CREDO.
Singh told BI that she defines governance with three questions.
Do you have any understanding of risks? How do you actually mitigate the risks of these technologies? How will you close your AI investment in the future for potential policy changes? Not just at the company level, but at the government level?
The most misinformed business is that governance slows them down when adopting AI. Credo’s data shows the opposite. “We are discovering that companies are improving their ROI,” she said.
Dataiku CEO Florian Doutteau observed similar concerns about governance in September 2024 on an “Executive Field Trip,” held by the CEO of the customer base. Governance ranks high on the list, with 94% of around 500 CEOs surveying and suspecting employees are secretly using the generated AI tools without official approval.
5. More people are sounding DEFL alarm
Silicon Valley leaders from Khosla to Sam Altman have expressed concern that AI will promote deflation. These fears were echoed by a handful of Humanx participants.
To be clear, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US still has an increase of approximately 2.8% in its consumer price index, which has risen by about 2.8% for the 12 months that closes in February 2025. However, technological changes are often correlated with DEFLation, as they encourage productivity and reduced production costs.
“It is undeniable that AI-based technology is rapidly evolving and adopted by people and businesses,” said Steve Berg, partner at Lytical Ventures. “The effects of inflation have been occurring in the same way, offsetting the effects of technology deflation, but what happens when one side becomes dominant?”
