Chinese officials were welcomed back. The pandemic, hopefully, is in the rearview mirror. Sustainability and DEI goals are weathering political backlash. And AI is primed to unleash a golden age of efficiency, productivity and economic growth.

• The mood was buoyant this week in Davos, as a few thousand of the global elite (and their masses of hangers-on) gathered in the Swiss Alps, Axios' Nicholas Johnston and Neil Irwin write.

Why it matters: The annual World Economic Forum is undefeated in capturing the zeitgeist and conventional wisdom that will animate the thinking of business and political leaders in the coming year. (Even if their conventional wisdom is often wrong!)

The Financial Times, house organ for the Davos set if there ever was one, set the stage with a list of 10 reasons to be optimistic this year, including:

• Scientific leaps in green energy and life sciences, regulatory movement on AI, lower inflation and the likelihood that "tyrants sowing havoc today will not last forever. Not even Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, is immortal," columnist Gillian Tett wrote.

AI dominated the storefronts rented by corporations, governments and nonprofits, and featured prominently in the mainstage programs. So did crypto two years ago. But the AI boom is now two years running.

• The Davos FOMO is strong, with companies worried about being left behind, futurist Amy Webb told Axos' Alison Snyder. "Some don't even have a problem to solve."

The energy is driven by an AI productivity boom that many see as a matter of when, not if.

• "In 2024, we think generative AI will move from pilots and experiments to implementation and industrialization," said Paul Knopp, U.S. CEO of KPMG.
• Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, said at an Axios House event that companies "are already seeing productivity gains" from AI tools.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Axios' Ina Fried that the next big ChatGPT model "will be able to do a lot, lot more" than the existing models — and that AI is evolving much more rapidly than previous technologies that took Silicon Valley by storm.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, used a CNBC interview to declare former President Trump was "kind of right" on many issues. Dimon said he's "prepared" for either candidate's victory in November.

🥊 Reality check: Officially, the mood is far from cheery, according to WEF's annual Global Risks Report. That found "a predominantly negative outlook for the world over the next two years that is expected to worsen over the next decade."

• The WEF's survey of about 1,500 "global experts" found that 30% see an elevated risk of global catastrophe over the next two years, rising to 63% over the next decade.

Allianz, the giant finance and insurance company, released a 51-page report about global risks, literally illustrated with a big red siren.

In: Talking business.

• Out: Talking politics.

In: Gas-powered Mercedes.

• Out: Electric Ubers.

In: Arriving Sunday and leaving Thursday.

• Out: Arriving Monday and leaving Friday.

In: Ukrainian baristas.

• Out: Coffee pods.

In: Wandering the open-access Promenade.

• Out: The security line at the Belvedere hotel.

In: Negronis.

• Out: Dry January.

Jim VandeHei confesses: I assumed Davos was another boondoggle, falsely rationalized as a terrific, efficient way to do business.

• I was mostly wrong.

Why it matters: As a newbie to this global elite-palooza, I discovered it's actually a highly effective way to speed-date business and reporting contacts, often 10 or more per day. The ROI is quite high.

• Guilt plays a role. It costs tons to travel to, sleep in and rent space in Davos. So most people feel obligated to load their days with back-to-back 30-minute meetings. This builds a natural meet-me momentum that works for all.

🖼️ The big picture: It's easy to roll your eyes at the lemming-like swarm to the New Big Idea. Sustainability! Populism! Crypto! This year's Thing is AI, AI, AI. It was snowing AI in the streets and event halls.

• I half-expected to run into someone from McDonald's telling me they're an AI cheeseburger food-tech startup.

But the hunger to learn and share information about AI is real, sincere and useful.

• AI skeptics — those who think it's overhyped and not just scary — are missing the moment. Every big company is pouring huge investment into practical, monetizable uses. This — along with the trillions that big tech companies are spending to bring large language models to life — guarantees it will dominate business and lives for years to come.

🔮 Prediction: Next year's Davos Big Thing? The unintended consequences of going all-in on AI.

Ina wore Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses during her interview with OpenAI CEO Altman at Axios House, our event space on the Davos main drag.

• The glasses livestreamed the interview to Instagram from her point of view via a camera in the glasses (video above).

💭 Ina's thought bubble: It was a last-minute decision. My colleague on the Axios AI+ newsletter, Ryan Heath, suggested it that morning. I got a few minutes of training from the nearby Meta House, did a quick dry run and decided to give it a go.

• I thought it was pretty cool. Altman told me it was "a little weird" and that he found it "very strange, for what it's worth."

Watch the full stream on the Axios Instagram account.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine provided an uneasy backdrop for the week's hobnobbing, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

• On the Israel-Hamas war, organizers faced a complex balancing act to avoid controversy.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke in person to attendees to try to stave off war fatigue.

The organizers, the WEF, invited both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to participate.

• The senior Israeli representative was President Isaac Herzog.
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent the chairman of the Palestinian investment fund — Mohammed Mustafe, the leading candidate to be the next Palestinian prime minister.

Behind the scenes: WEF wanted to avoid anything that could spark protests or demonstrations regarding the war during the conference, according to a source with knowledge of the issue.

The bottom line: With the excitement over AI, global politics had the feel of a Davos sideline. As Time magazine framed it: "Gaza and Ukraine Fight for the World's Attention."

What could be more Davos than a "carbon removal handshake"?!

• Tito Jankowski (left), CEO of AirMiners (a carbon removal accelerator), and Harris Cohn (right), head of sales for Charm Industrial (bio-oil sequestration), mentioned this invention to Mike Allen at an Axios House event. He instantly knew this was prime Deep Dive content.

Why it matters: "This is a beautiful way to explain and educate the whole vision of carbon removal in a super simple way," Tito tells us. "Everyone gets it. ... This beats charts, data, numbers, stories."

How it works: Tito tells Mike the handshake grew out of the old "bump and explode" fist bump.

• "You'd fist bump and then make a 'boom' explosion motion," Tito said. "In a stroke of inspiration, playing off this meme, with my fellow attendees at [the Carbon Removal Basel 2023] conference, we came up with the carbon removal handshake."

1. You grab the carbon from the sky.
2. Then you fist bump.
3. Then you never let it go!

The bottom line: "I'm not good at jokes or magic tricks," Tito said. "But this handshake is the only thing I know where every single time, the person's reaction is to laugh when I say: 'Then you never let it go!"

• Video: 150 people do the handshake.