Executives at Fortune event say AI returns require process redesign

Executives at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Aspen, Colorado, said companies are not seeing returns on AI investments because they skip foundational data preparation and process redesign. Manoj Bohra, the CTO at State Street, said firms must first place data in the right locations with governance controls.

He added that mapping workflows before automation is required and that expecting returns within one or two years is unrealistic. Bill Briggs, the chief technology officer at Deloitte, said many businesses launch AI tools without first defining strategic goals.

He noted that inserting AI into existing processes can scale inefficiencies rather than remove them.

Measuring productivity gains Faraz Shafiq, the chief AI product officer at Wells Fargo, said the bank built a shared AI agent platform and governance structure. He reported a 25 percent increase in new account openings after deploying AI tools but said other gains, such as more time for customer relationships, are harder to quantify immediately.

Wen Sang, the cofounder and chief operating officer at Genspark, said advertising firms now use AI to create video prototypes instead of static storyboards, lowering costs and raising the chance of winning new business.

Preparing for broader AI agent use Stephen Balaban, the cofounder and CTO of Lambda, said AI agents are currently reliable only in software development. He added that companies should prepare for wider use within the next one to two years. Boris Cherny, Anthropic’s Head of Claude Code, said in-person meetings have become more important as engineers spend increasing time supervising large numbers of AI agents.