Steve Lucas, Chairman and CEO of Bumi and a 30-year enterprise software veteran, offers a sharp perspective on the true beneficiaries and challenges in the current AI landscape. Speaking with Motley Fool analyst Rachel Warren, Lucas asserts that while many companies are building impressive AI models, NVIDIA is currently the *only* one unequivocally making substantial money from AI.
Lucas highlights a significant shift: after an initial phase where companies were rewarded for merely having an AI strategy, Wall Street is now demanding measurable business outcomes and a clear return on investment (ROI). He states, "ROI supersedes AI," noting that many early AI projects, rushed due to board pressure, are not delivering expected high returns.
The financial scale of AI development is staggering. Lucas points to the four major US hyperscalers, whose CapEx on AI jumped from approximately $400 billion last year to over $700 billion this year—a "canary in the coal mine" for the broader market. While AI and infrastructure spending are soaring, investment in software applications is declining. This immense spending, coupled with a lack of proven ROI, signals the end of the "blank check" era for AI. Lucas reveals that CEOs he consults are desperate to demonstrate returns, and boards will soon aggressively hold executives accountable.
The cost of training advanced AI models has ballooned from around $50,000 for GPT-2 to potentially over a billion dollars for frontier models by 2026—likening the jump from a "used car to an aircraft carrier." He notes that OpenAI reportedly burns $3 billion a month, unsustainable in the long term, implying these costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers or enterprises. This financial pressure is already leading some companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, to cap internal AI spending. Lucas predicts that within six months, most CEOs will impose internal spending limits, and boards will demand clear ROI before approving further significant AI investments.
Lucas suggests that as many as 40% of enterprise AI projects could be abandoned, a figure supported by Gartner's predictions that many "agentic projects" will fail by 2027. He attributes this failure rate to the ease of starting AI projects without proper consideration for business requirements or strategic outcomes, leading to widespread experimentation that lacks productive results.
A crucial factor in project success, according to Lucas, is trust. Drawing from his three decades in software, he emphasizes that "if humans don't trust something, it will never be used." He points out that many business intelligence projects fail due to inaccurate data leading to a breakdown of trust. For AI, the challenge is even greater, as it concerns not just data but potentially job functions. He dismisses the "AI taking jobs" narrative as "nonsense and FUD," asserting that the real issue is whether people trust AI enough to allow it to perform critical tasks.
Looking at the next wave of AI winners beyond NVIDIA, Lucas identifies companies providing "critical AI infrastructure." His own company, Bumi, for instance, focuses on connecting to, improving the quality of, and securely delivering data to AI models. He cites Snowflake, Databricks, and Datadog as examples of organizations centering around data that are seeing "massive benefit" and growth. The next major wave, he believes, will be "enterprise AI for B2B," heavily reliant on data and infrastructure.
For investors, Lucas advises looking for businesses with "data and graph moats"—unique, non-replicable data that serves as the "energy" for AI. He also cautions against generic "I'm not just software" messaging from CEOs, which often signals an attempt to ward off disruption fears. He argues that frontier model companies, currently losing billions, will struggle to monetize long-term without significant penetration into labor markets, a scenario they initially hoped for but hasn't materialized.
Regarding layoffs attributed to AI efficiency, Lucas calls it "a whole lot of spin," urging investors to demand concrete data and financial proof of such efficiencies rather than accepting convenient narratives. The most reliable indicator of truly transformative technology, he says, is accelerated *new customer acquisition*, not just pushing products on existing clients.
On a philosophical note, Lucas expresses profound optimism for AI's potential in healthcare, citing his personal experience as a Type 1 diabetic. He believes AI will revolutionize disease management and ultimately lead to longer, healthier lives within two decades. However, his greatest caution lies in the ethical dilemma of AI's access to deeply personal health data being simultaneously used for marketing products and services—the fine line between benefiting humankind and simply "selling you a cup of coffee."