Also: Mellody Hobson's rise, SEC's climate rules, expanding chip controls.
Good morning.
I’ve spent the last two days at C3.ai’s Transform customer event in Florida, where CEO Tom Siebel gave one of the most coherent explanations I’ve heard of how AI will transform large companies. Siebel started at Oracle and founded Siebel Systems before launching C3.ai in 2009, so he has a unique perspective on where enterprise technology has been and where it is headed. He boiled it down to three phases:
—Enterprise software companies (Oracle, Siebel, others) gave large corporations control of their data and 20/20 hindsight into their performance and operations;
—Predictive AI allows corporations to use that data to predict the future, turning it into valuable intelligence;
—Generative AI democratizes that intelligence, making it accessible to everyone in the corporation through a natural language interface.
Siebel acknowledged the catalog of concerns that companies now have with generative AI—random responses, lack of traceability, no data controls, increased cyber risk, IP exposure, hallucinations. But he believes those will soon be solved through what’s called retrieval augmented generation (RAG) that allows large language models to provide the user interface, but then draws all information and intelligence from enterprise systems with deterministic and traceable responses and enterprise-quality data and IP controls. Remember that acronym—RAG—as it will be key to the future of using generative AI in large companies. (Full disclosure: C3.ai is a Fortune partner.)
For companies on this journey, Fortune will be continuing its series of AI learning events, in partnership with Accenture, at Fortune Brainstorm AI in London April 15-16. The team has a stellar group of experts lined up, including top executives from DeepMind, Microsoft, Palantir, Shell, Royal Philips, Maersk, as well as CEOs and founders of AI startups including Darktrace, EleutherAI, Precognition and more. You can learn more and request an invitation here, or shoot me a note.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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A single phone call
Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel Investments, got her start at asset manager Ariel Investments with a phone call she made from a Princeton basement to founder John W. Rogers Jr. “I called John from a payphone, and I think I called collect,” she says. She now leads the firm alongside Rogers. Hobson defends the practice of having co-CEOs, an arrangement that other companies have struggled with: “John and I can cover so much ground, both separately and together,” she says. Fortune
Climate change disclosure
The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a watered-down climate disclosure rule on Wednesday, in a split 3-2 decision. The rule will require companies to disclose climate-related risks but removed a controversial measure to force companies to disclose “Scope 3 emissions,” or indirect carbon emissions from sources a company does not control. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who opposed the rule change, complained that climate data were sometimes little better than “high-priced guesses.” Fortune
Chip controls
The U.S. is pressing allies like Germany and South Korea to help limit Chinese access to semiconductor technology, expanding controls first launched by the Biden administration in October 2022. Japan and the Netherlands agreed to join the U.S. export controls last year, but are wary of tightening rules further. U.S. officials may be spooked by China’s ability to catch up on leading-edge chip production, such as the processor that powers Huawei’s latest 5G smartphone. Bloomberg
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The Shift from Mass to Micro Diverse consumer profiles and a fragmented tech-driven market drive the transition from supply-focused to demand-driven model. The pivot marks a move from mass-market approaches to strategies that prioritize relevance for specific consumer groups. Read more.
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