Brett Taylor, co-founder of artificial intelligence startup Sierra, said Thursday that AI is “probably” a bubble, with both “smart money” and “stupid money” funding competitors at every layer of the technology stack.
Taylor, who also serves as OpenAI’s board chairman, said the free market will ultimately decide where value lies and which AI players have the best products. He described himself as an AI optimist.
“The money is plentiful because we all know that AI will have a huge economic impact across a wide range of industries and workflows,” Taylor told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“I think we’ll see some adjustment over the next few years, we’ll see some consolidation, but I don’t think we’ll get innovation without that kind of nasty competition,” he added.
Taylor co-founded Sierra in 2023, and the company builds and implements AI agents for customer service. Sierra raised $350 million in new funding in September, increasing its valuation to $10 billion.
Before launching Sierra, Taylor served as co-CEO of Salesforce with Marc Benioff. He also serves as Chairman of the Board at Twitter (now X) and Facebook (now Chief Technology Officer). metacreated in collaboration with google map.
He said AI will have a “huge impact” on commerce, search and payments across the board, but it will take time for businesses to adopt it, the regulatory environment to evolve and the infrastructure to be in place.
“I think we’re at the beginning of this curve,” Taylor said.
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