From DeepSeek to job risks: What tech leaders are saying on AI right now

The future of artificial intelligence is a major topic of conversation among global tech and business leaders at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore. 

Numerous executives talked up the potential of AI and discussed how it’s expected to impact the future of work and productivity. 

Here’s a compilation of quotes from some of the top corporate leaders attending CONVERGE LIVE this week:

Joe Tsai, chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba, spoke about how AI can enhance productivity and boost global GDP, with a total addressable market of “at least $10 trillion, if not bigger.”

“If you look at AI, what does it do? It actually improves human productivity,” he said, noting that Alibaba itself can benefit a lot from the deployment of AI within its own business. 

Tsai also discussed how the release of Chinese AI Start-up DeepSeek’s open-sourced R1 model in January has impacted the global AI space and has led to a “proliferation of applications.” 

“I think the so-called DeepSeek moment is really not about whether China has better AI than the U.S., or vice versa. It’s really about the power of open source,” he said.

“Once you open-source the model, people can take the model and deploy it on their own infrastructure, whether it’s in the data center or in your laptop computer, all of a sudden you have the power of AI at your fingertips.”

“Now you have small companies and big companies and corporations and individuals and entrepreneurs developing on top of these open source [models], so the AI game is not just left to the five richest companies in the world that can afford to invest like $50 billion a year,” he added.

Dean Carignan, AI innovations lead at Microsoft, discussed the concept of “human-centered AI” and how it can help improve the future of the workplace.  

“Human-centered AI means starting with the user and asking first: what should AI do? As opposed to: what can it do? … So much of the [AI] discussion is around models and technology and capabilities. We should be starting with the user and the needs.”

Carignan also noted that AI can help improve human productivity rather than replicating it.   

“We like to talk about human-AI complementarity and thinking of workflows where an AI can take away the drudgery of the work and allow the human to provide the things that only a person can do: creativity, innovation, coalition building, inspiration, motivating others.”

Guy Diedrich, SVP and global innovation officer at Cisco, discussed the importance of AI companies providing trust in the space. 

“Trust is foundational for us moving forward … You don’t get access to data [for AI] unless you’re trusted, and the way that you’re trusted in our industry is to provide security and be transparent.”

Diedrich also discussed how a company’s up-skilling must be agile to keep up with the rapid innovation of AI. 

“Right now, we are in the AI micro age, or the AI moment. In the next couple of years, AI is going to be embedded in everything that we do. We’re going to take it for granted,” he said. “Be prepared to skill at the speed of innovation. Otherwise, your people will never be as productive as they could be.”

Ganesha Rasiah, chief strategy officer at HP, told CONVERGE LIVE about the impact that AI could have on the job market. 

“Certain jobs are going to be eliminated. I think that’s to be expected, but we don’t foresee a world in which there’s a significantly elevated level of unemployment,” he said.

Instead, as AI capabilities become more accessible, there will be an explosion in demand and shifts in the nature of work,” he added. “There’s an element of democratization that AI is bringing, which I think is huge. I do see it as being able to the tide that raises all boats.”

Kamal Bhatia, president and CEO of Principal Asset Management, described the rise of DeepSeek as “quite amazing.”

“I would describe it as innovation under adversity,” he said.

Investors can miss out if they think innovation only occurs if capital exists, he added. “What the China experiment proves … is you can actually extend innovation without capital,” he said. With “adversity, you can actually leapfrog.”

Marc Benioff, CEO of enterprise software giant Salesforce, noted the number of “multi 100 billion dollar” investments in data centers in recent months as the hype around AI has grown.

“I think that what you just saw with DeepSeek, and also with Alibaba, with their Qwen model, is that you don’t need this kind of technology. So I think it has to be rethought. Exactly what are you doing and why are you doing this?,” he said of the huge data center investments.

“You can get into a group-think in technology also, and this idea — do they need it? Well, maybe they do, but also maybe they do not.”