Dec 9, 2025 - Axios Events
Axios AI+ SF: Experts consider path forward for measuring AI's return on investment
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Attendees engaging during the lunch. Photo: Chris Constantine on behalf of Axios
SAN FRANCISCO – Technology leaders discussed how AI's financial success varies by use case at a roundtable at Axios' AI+ SF Summit last week.
- Axios' Madison Mills and Sam Sabin moderated the Dec. 4 discussion, sponsored by Atlassian.
Why it matters: With massive amounts of capital pouring into artificial intelligence, companies are looking at how those investments are paying off.
5 big things: Here's what the attendees had to say …
- "I always say in every technology disruption it's always people, process [and] technology, in that order. … And I think it's not about the technology, it's about the organizational build to drive AI transformation for those use cases," Bessemer Venture Partners operating advisor Barak Turovsky said.
- There are two key marks for AI ROI, Informatica chief product officer Krish Vitaldevara said. One is the cost curve, the other is the value curve. "The metrics differ depending on which part of the enterprise curve are you on and what you're investing in," he said.
- Bringing infinitely scalable AI into business models to produce outcomes is more of a business and organizational program than a technology problem, Distyl AI co-founder and CEO Arjun Prakash said. "That value creation is actually less of a technology challenge to be solved," he said.
- "For now, it's enough. … Most of the research is hard to interpret," KPMG principal Per Edin said of AI ROI. "The addressable opportunity, the R, is worth between 4% and 18% of EBITDA for companies across the world of most sizes. Think of that as the addressable market." He noted that this data is theoretical and based on labor productivity.
- Using AI to optimize existing processes leads to new applications, Quest Software chief data technologist Susan Laine said. "I think one leads to the other. Starting to experiment and use gen AI for what you do on a regular basis leads to innovation," she said.
Content from the sponsored remarks:
Atlassian chief marketing officer Zeynep Inanoglu Ozdemir said that bringing AI into company workflows is top of mind.
- "We're builders of AI tools, but at the same time we're using AI tools every single day, and we're trying to figure out what that AI human collaboration looks like in our organization [and] reimagining what we do with AI," Ozdemir said.
