Franklin Templeton chief executive Jenny Johnson says most companies are misreading where the real value of artificial intelligence will emerge.
In a new Bloomberg Originals interview, Johnson says businesses will gain a competitive edge by securing their data first before building their own models.
“I do not think most firms will have the same models. I think that firms will leverage things like OpenAI and start to customize. But training the model is going to be all about your own data. That is why one of the first things you do when you are building out AI is you immediately fence off your own data.”
But Johnson notes that building a unique and customized AI model is just the first step. She says the future belongs to companies that effectively distribute AI tools to their entire employee base, rather than being isolated in technical teams.
“What gets really interesting is that the AI leveraging as a tool by your entire talent force is going to be what the future is.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella echoes Johnson’s concerns about fencing off data to foundational model builders. Nadella says firms must build their own AI-native capabilities or risk losing their proprietary data to the tech sector. He warns that the danger lies in companies feeding their own data to models like ChatGPT, Gemini or Grok, making the models smarter to the benefit of their creators.
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