AI is not cheap. During the past year, public cloud giants have significantly accelerated their investments in AI. By the close of 2024, Microsoft had invested more than $80 billion in AI infrastructure, partnerships, and development. AWS is on track to spend nearly a year’s worth of its revenue on AI in 2025, with AI data center spending up 13.2% to $9.3 billion in 2024. Major tech companies, including Google and Meta, collectively contribute to a $1 trillion global wave of generative AI investments projected in the next few years, much of it pouring directly into their hyperscale data centers and cloud-based AI services
For the better part of a decade, public cloud providers have touted their AI offerings as the next frontier in digital transformation. With promises of limitless scalability, rich prebuilt services, and democratized intelligence, we were led to believe that AI in the cloud was a simple answer for complex business needs. Yet, after countless conversations and firsthand engagements with enterprises, I see a growing gulf between what the major cloud providers sell and what enterprises truly need.
Business value lost in translation
The biggest marketing failure is not just technical; it’s a disconnect between understanding and defining business value for enterprise customers. When large public cloud providers launch their newest AI models and APIs, they announce partnerships with AI leaders and host summits that highlight the next wave of technology that their products will support. Although these efforts generate excitement, they seldom address the core question every enterprise leader should ask: “How will this improve my business?”
