AI in the Enterprise CXO Dinner

As part of West Park Advisory’s ongoing advisory work on how companies need to position themselves with public investors in the era of AI, we recently hosted a lively dinner at the Rosewood Sand Hill in Menlo Park, California on the theme of “AI in the Enterprise.” Over the past month we have also engaged our network of institutional investors to assess their expectations as we enter the new year and to help our clients prepare for AI-related questions for 2026.

The event was attended by key technology thought-leaders including founders, board members, CEOs, CFOs, CTOs and CIOs of public and private technology companies and investors. It was a dynamic conversation that touched on a variety of important topics.

AI is driving productivity; we just can’t measure it yet.

Investors are going to increasingly ask for tangible data points that highlight how AI improves a company’s competitive differentiation and, ultimately, the returns they can expect to receive in the form of faster revenue growth and/or higher margins.

The group cited several areas where AI is already driving measurable productivity gains including software development, legal, FP&A and back-office functions such as accounts payable. While there is anecdotal evidence of benefits visible in reduced headcount additions and speed of delivery, most attendees stated that it is too early to fully quantify ROI with confidence. The open question is which companies will successfully turn AI benefits into lasting competitive advantages. Faster adopters and companies with greater scale are viewed as having a distinct advantage.

Will specialization win in the end?

An oft-repeated investor axiom holds that companies with a vertical focus tend to outperform their generalized peers.

What stood out from the dinner discussion was that while the mega LLM battles dominate the current headlines (rightfully, considering the level of investment), the attendees largely agreed that the real differentiator will come from specialization. The consensus was that verticalized models and agents, built around specific industries and domains of expertise, will offer more durable advantages than general-purpose LLMs that seem to regularly leapfrog each other on performance and price, a trend that implies commoditization.

The young shall inherit the earth.

More successful companies are pushing their cultures to embrace AI adoption at speed. A common barrier cited is that many seasoned employees still rely on legacy methods and established routines, slowing down the pace of innovation.

By contrast, younger employees are more eager and adept at using AI to streamline and enhance existing processes, with one CFO looking to gamify challenges to create a competition for best ideas. Most agree that the most effective path to adoption is a “bottoms up” approach that solves specific tasks and addresses practical use cases, rather than a “top down” ultimatum to implement AI across the enterprise.

The stock market may retrench, but that does not mean the opportunity isn’t real.

Most attendees would not be surprised by a public market correction, but they all agreed it would do little to diminish the broader opportunity ahead. AI was widely viewed as a generational change in the early innings and on par with the Industrial Revolution.

For public company management teams, near-term ROI from AI will remain inherently difficult to quantify, yet investor expectations are already racing ahead of the results. In this environment, leaders need to move beyond vague narratives and offer a clear, credible view of how AI is expected to translate into a durable competitive advantage.

At the same time, public companies must navigate the tension between near-term expectations and long-term potential. The imperative is to pair specific anecdotes, early use cases, and directional KPIs with a long-term arc that keeps investors anchored on the magnitude of the opportunity rather than just the immediacy of the payoff.

Against that backdrop, West Park Advisory will continue to deepen its work on AI and capital markets into the new year. Our goal is to ensure that our client’s AI strategy is fundamentally sound and communicated in a way that builds credibility, supports valuation, and helps them succeed in the capital markets.