How to Maximize ROI on AI in 2026

The promise of agentic AI has been massive, autonomous systems that act, reason, and make business decisions, but most enterprises are still struggling to see results. In this episode, host Chris Brandt sits down with Sumeet Arora, Chief Product Officer at Teradata, to unpack why the gap exists between AI hype and actual impact, and what it takes to make AI scale, explainable, and ROI-driven. From the shift toward “AI with ROI” to the new era of human + AI systems and data quality challenges, Sumeet shares how leading enterprises are moving from flashy demos to measurable value and trust in the next phase of AI. CHAPTER MARKERS 00:00 The AI Hackathon Era 03:10 Hype vs Reality in Agentic AI 06:05 Redesigning the Human AI Interface 09:15 From Demos to Real Economic Outcomes 12:20 Why Scaling AI Still Fails 15:05 The Importance of AI Ready Knowledge 18:10 Data Quality and the Biggest Bottleneck 20:46 Building the Customer 360 Knowledge Layer 23:35 Push vs Pull Systems in Modern AI 26:15 Rethinking Enterprise Workflows 29:20 AI Agents and Outcome Driven Design 32:45 Where Agentic AI Works Today 36:10 What Enterprises Still Get Wrong 39:30 How AI Changes Engineering Priorities 55:49 The Future of GPUs and Efficiency Challenges -- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to. That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo. --- IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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How to Maximize ROI on AI in 2026 is an episode from IT Visionaries by Mission.

This episode is 00:59:51 long.

This episode was published on Nov 20, 2025.

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