Axios Event: Getting the most out of enterprise AI requires "a lot of work," Glean CEO says

SAN FRANCISCO – Enterprise AI tools are becoming more common in the workplace but "there is a lot of work" companies need to do to get the most out of the technology, Glean co-founder and CEO Arvind Jain says.

Why it matters: Companies are trying to figure out where to get the most bang for their buck in AI investments, with many waiting to see whether their return on investment will play out.

Axios' Dan Primack moderated a conversation with Glean co-founder and CEO Arvind Jain at a Dec. 16 event, which was sponsored by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

What they're saying: "It [AI] is still very error prone, it's unpredictable and also hard to make it work inside an enterprise," said Jain.

• "There's a lot of work that you have to do to actually get the most out of it inside an enterprise," Jain continued.

Jain was able to gauge the usefulness of Glean, an enterprise AI company specializing in its search capabilities, because he and his company use the product at work themselves.

• "If you are the user of the product that you are building, you will just always have amazing, great ideas for it. If you're not the user, then you have to rely 100% on your customers to tell you what you need to build," Jain said.

What we're watching: When asked about the company's prospects for going public, Jain said Glean is still "far away from that."

Sponsored content:

In a View From the Top segment, Lightspeed Venture Partners partner and co-founder Ravi Mhatre says businesses are moving from experimentation of AI in 2024 to evaluation of applications and their return on investment in 2025.

• "I think we're at the point and what we expect in 2025 is we're going to move more into a period of businesses evaluating, okay, I understand what it does in the context of my business, now I want to evaluate specific applications," Mhatre said.