Sam Altman Says AI ROI Concerns Are 'Most Fair' Criticism but Expects Industry to Solve Waste 'Pretty Quickly'
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed investor questions about whether heavy AI infrastructure spending will generate matching revenue during a Monday CNBC interview. He acknowledged widespread waste and underused computing capacity across the industry.
" The OpenAI CEO made the comments during a CNBC interview on Monday. Altman described what companies tell him about their AI budgets. "You hear companies saying, I am spending a ton of money on AI. And I know some great stuff is happening, but I know there's a ton of waste," he said.
He summarized the timeline questions businesses raise. " Altman added that he assumes "the industry will figure that out pretty quickly" but called the issue fair. An April report from The Wall Street Journal stated that OpenAI missed some key targets for revenue and user growth last year.
The company hosted BlackRock's 2026 Infrastructure Summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Cast AI analyzed 23,000 clusters across thousands of companies and found average GPU utilization was just 5%, meaning roughly 95% of provisioned graphics-processing capacity sat idle.
Laurent Gil, cofounder and president of Cast AI, said companies are often hoarding scarce AI chips because they fear missing out, not because they have an immediate need.
Marcus stated that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta collectively are spending more money than the Manhattan Project each month.
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