Amy Webb: Fortune 500 AI spend lacks strategy

Webb's remarks at the Fortune AIQ Summit came during a panel with Fortune AI editor Jeremy Kahn, where she argued that the corporate AI race is not new. She said artificial intelligence didn't just show up a couple of years ago, yet many Fortune 500 companies remain late to the party. Her concern is not the technology itself but the absence of planning around it, which she said leads to pilots that never go anywhere and to employees frustrated enough to build tools on their own.

The contrast with Runway, as described by its chief operating officer Michelle Kwon, illustrates what Webb considers a clearer vision. Runway's staff all write code, and employees have built about 215 apps for an internal app store since earlier this year. One worker built a new ad product in a handful of weeks, and it raised ad output by more than 1,000% from a very small base. Kwon also warned that using AI is not a proxy for productivity, pointing to unhelpful outputs like a 100-slide deck.

The stakes of Webb's critique appear to hinge on whether large companies can build flexible mechanisms before more pilots become orphaned. If they don't, the money spent may produce isolated productivity gains rather than company-wide results, and the risk of liability may grow as boards and risk officers grapple with tools they don't fully understand.