{"id":18748,"date":"2026-02-04T17:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=18748"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:01:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:01:03","slug":"jensen-huang-says-demanding-roi-from-ai-is-like-forcing-a-child-to-make-a-business-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=18748","title":{"rendered":"Jensen Huang says demanding ROI from AI is like forcing a child to make a business plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a number haunting the artificial intelligence (AI) space: 95%. As in, 95% of generative AI pilots are failing, according to MIT\u2019s influential, arguably overblown research study in August 2025. When Fortune<\/em>\u2018s Diane Brady spoke with PwC Global Chairman Mohamed Kande roughly six months later, in Davos, Switzerland, that number was stubbornly high: 56% of CEOs surveyed were getting \u201cnothing\u201d from their AI adoption efforts.<\/p>\n

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The solution is peace, love, understanding, and good parenting skills, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The $4 trillion market-cap man arrived at the Cisco AI Summit with a message that sounded less like Wall Street rigor and more like a blend of 1960s counterculture and modern parenting: \u201cLet a thousand flowers bloom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting down with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, Huang addressed the tension facing enterprise leaders who feel the pressure to adopt AI but fear the lack of immediate, quantifiable results. When Robbins asked for the first steps an enterprise should take, Huang dismissed the immediate fixation on spreadsheets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get questions like \u2026 ROI,\u201d Huang said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t go there\u201d.<\/p>\n

Instead, he advocated for a philosophy of abundance and messy experimentation, explicitly comparing corporate innovation to raising children. He argued that demanding proof of financial success before allowing an engineer to try a new AI tool is as stifling as asking a child to justify a hobby with a business plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the same thing for my company that I want for my kids: go explore life,\u201d Huang explained. When your kids tell you they want to try something, he added, you should say yes. We never ask questions at home like: what is the return on investment here? How is this going to lead to financial success? How can you prove to me that it\u2019s worthwhile? \u201cWe never do that at home. But we do it at work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Innovation needs therapy, not control<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This approach requires executives to relinquish a degree of command that might feel uncomfortable, Huang admitted, arguing that the creativity and innovation make it worthwhile. \u201cThe number of different AI projects in our company is, it\u2019s out of control and it\u2019s great,\u201d he said, remarking that innovation doesn\u2019t always happen when you\u2019re in control. \u201cIf you want to be in control, first of all, you\u2019ve got to seek therapy. But second, it\u2019s an illusion. You\u2019re not in control. If you want your company to succeed, you can\u2019t control it.<\/p>\n

Huang argued that to succeed, leaders must seek to influence<\/em> their companies rather than control them. The logic behind letting \u201ca thousand flowers bloom\u201d is risk management through diversification. While this method \u201cmakes for a messy garden,\u201d he said, it prevents the error of committing resources\u2014\u201dputting all your wood behind one arrow\u201d\u2014too early in a technological shift where the \u201cwinning\u201d tools are not yet obvious.<\/p>\n

Lift the hood<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While advocating for a relaxed approach to ROI, Huang was adamant about the necessity of \u201ctactile understanding.\u201d He urged leaders not to rely solely on cloud rentals or finished products.<\/p>\n

Computers are everywhere these days, he said, but if you built one yourself, you\u2019d still get a better understanding, just like a good car owner wouldn\u2019t take Uber all the time but would look closely at their engine. \u201cLift the hood, change the oil, understand all the components,\u201d he said. \u201cBuild something. You might discover you\u2019re actually insanely good at it. You might discover that you need that skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stressed that because AI technology is vital to the future, companies must build some infrastructure on-premise to truly understand how the \u201ccomponents\u201d work. This relates to data privacy and what Huang calls the most valuable intellectual property: the questions. \u201cThe most valuable IP to me is not my answers\u2026 they\u2019re my questions,\u201d Huang said, remarking that answers are a commodity but smart questions are irreplaceable.<\/p>\n

Fortune<\/em> recently visited KPMG\u2019s Lakehouse in Orlando, Florida, where the firm was rolling out its AI training framework, first with interns and then firmwide. \u201cThink, prompt, check\u201d was how they were training employees to work with AI, stressing the first and last points as something not to take for granted. <\/p>\n

From explicit to implicit<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The urgency for this experimentation, according to Huang, stems from a fundamental \u201creinvention of computing.\u201d The industry is moving from \u201cexplicit programming\u201d\u2014writing specific lines of code\u2014to \u201cimplicit programming,\u201d where users state their intent, and the AI figures out the solution.<\/p>\n

In this new world, \u201ctyping is a commodity,\u201d Huang noted. The true value lies in the domain expertise required to guide the AI. \u201cYou now tell the computer what your intent is, and it goes off and figures out how to solve your problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huang closed by flipping the popular ethical narrative of \u201chumans in the loop\u201d on its head. The goal, he stated, should be \u201cAI in the loop.\u201d By integrating AI into every process, companies can capture the \u201clife experience\u201d of their employees, turning daily work into permanent corporate intellectual property. In other words, they\u2019ll be letting a thousand flowers bloom, but only if they have the right curiosity, the right questions, and the right support from above to think freely.<\/p>\n

For this story,\u00a0<\/em>Fortune\u00a0journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Jensen #Huang #demanding #ROI #forcing #child #business #plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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