How’s AI making you money, or shaking up your company? Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon and Apple’s CEO Tim Cook are among the executives who have badly fudged their answers recently over the past few weeks.
Here’s Morgan Stanley’s Eric Woodring, grilling Tim Cook on January 29: “Many of your competitors have already integrated AI into their devices. It is just not clear yet what incremental monetization they are seeing…”
To be as specific as possible, he asked: “How do you monetize AI?”
Apple’s CEO Cook: “We are bringing intelligence to more of what people love, and we are integrating it across the operating system in a personal and private way. And I think that by doing so, it creates great value, and that opens up a range of opportunities across our products and services.”
Sound the “fail” klaxons; that’s a pathetic non-answer – and he gets extra deductions for refusing to say what Apple is paying Google for its AI.
‘Game-changer!’ ‘Superpower!’
Here’s Wells Fargo’s Mike Mayo to David Solomon on January 15: “Whenever I ask about AI, it's always ‘it's transformational; it's a game changer; it's a superpower!’ Maybe you could frame the output that you like to achieve. How much more in revenues? How much in efficiency?”
Goldman Sachs’ Solomon: “I promise you… you're going to get more over time, as we're in a position to give you metrics, to give you targets…”
Pushed again by Mayo for just ONE metric he might look back on in five years. (“Revenues per employee? … efficiency? Would it be headcount?”) Solomon alluded to a rise in productivity, but fudged his answer again.
Fear or fundamentals?
Fair enough: Apple and Goldman alike are tankers that turn cautiously.
And nobody’s vibe-coding a new MacOS or complex trading platform yet.
