Good morning.
At the start of this year, when chipmaker Nvidia was a slip of a thing that hovered around $48 a share, conversations about AI felt tinged with existential angst. Many leaders said they were all in, eager to learn more and vowing to disrupt themselves, lest they be disrupted. We all assumed the impact was going to be big—so big that a majority of AI experts polled predicted there was at least a 5% chance it would cause human extinction.
Interest remains strong in AI and Nvidia, which is still up 150% this year after reporting a minor production snag amid strong earnings yesterday, and up almost 3,000% in the past five years. But the mood around the speed of disruption and the immediate impact on business has shifted. More familiarity with generative AI has brought more comfort in understanding how to use it. There’s also more awareness of AI’s limitations, from the softball questions at a Google staff meetings and bots spreading disinformation to employee distrust and regulation.
When I’m speaking to leaders, I often ask how they’re doing in AI. One CEO in the finance sector recently told me that he felt relieved when a new AI tool didn’t quite work as planned: “It gave us some breathing room to go at a more human pace.” Another told me they’re doing smaller projects to incorporate customer feedback before making whole scale changes. Add in the time and expense needed to label data and train workers.
That doesn’t diminish the long-term impact of AI or its leading player. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said yesterday that he’s “seeing the momentum of generative AI accelerate.” We’re seeing a company that’s doing well but looking a little more down-to-earth, beset with the same employee issues and production snafus as the rest of us.
The person who first put Nvidia on my radar screen is John Chambers, the former CEO of Cisco. When I helped him write a book several years ago, he said Nvidia was well-positioned to be a leader in AI. He ought to know: Cisco became the most valuable company on the planet during his tenure. Then the dot.com bubble burst, Cisco shares dropped almost 90% from their high, and Chambers had to rebuild. Today, Cisco is a successful company with numerous competitors. Some wonder if that could be the trajectory of this era’s tech superstars.
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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