The Business of AI: What Scales and What Doesn’t | Global Conference 2026

Watch all 2026 Global Conference session replays: https://milkeninstitute.org/events/gl... This panel will explore how investors are evaluating software platforms, enterprise AI applications, vertical SaaS solutions, and developer tools that monetize AI capabilities at scale. The discussion will focus on business model durability—as competition intensifies, which companies will capture margin through proprietary data, distribution advantages, or switching costs, versus those competing primarily on model performance or compute efficiency? How are enterprise adoption patterns, time-to-value, and ROI measurement shaping which AI applications gain traction, and which remain as science projects? With thousands of AI startups competing for attention, what separates sustainable software businesses from infrastructure-dependent wrappers? Jared Carney Founder and CEO, Lightdale LLC Speakers Matthieu Courtecuisse Founder and CEO, Sia Raj Ganguly Co-founder and Co-CEO, B Capital Lari Hämäläinen Senior Partner, Technology and Advanced Industries Practices, North America, McKinsey & Company Molly Murphy Chief Investment Officer, Orange County Employees Retirement System Barbara Nash Head, Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Coverage, BNP Paribas