Tech Disruptors

“Over 80% of Marketplace transactions are still self-service today, but the bulk of the revenue is enterprises buying large contracts,” Matt Yanchyshyn, vice president of AWS Marketplace and Partner Services, tells BI senior technology analyst Anurag Rana. Yanchyshyn explains how AWS Marketplace has evolved from an app-store-style catalog into an enterprise procurement channel offering private offers, co-sell, services, and software. The discussion unpacks why AI agents are the fastest-growing category on Marketplace, the shift toward solution bundles and how AWS is approaching model flexibility, governance and security as agents increasingly do discovery via MCP-style integrations.

AI agents are driving more experimentation and early production use cases across enterprise workflows. Box CEO Aaron Levie and AWS Director of Financial Services Market Development John Kain join Bloomberg Intelligence senior software analyst Sunil Rajgopal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how financial institutions are applying agentic AI to onboarding, compliance and document-heavy processes. “Agents can only be as effective as the context that they have,” Levie says, while Kain adds, “It's not to replace the human decision process. It's to accelerate the human decision process.” The conversation also explores data fragmentation, governance and guardrails, infrastructure-scaling challenges, and why companies remain in the early stages of enterprise-wide transformation.

AI's expansion into enterprise use is exposing a gap between rapid prototyping and reliable deployment across the organization. Domino Data Lab CEO Nick Elprin joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior software analyst Sunil Rajgopal to discuss how model-driven organizations are putting AI to work in core-business settings, where governance and standardization are essential. As coding assistants enable domain experts to build full-stack analytics applications, “basic SaaS applications are pretty seriously threatened right now,” Elprin says. The conversation also explores why human-in-the-loop systems are still essential and how companies manage fragmentation risks as agentic AI evolves.

“We charged for outcomes with Fin…we're charging when we did the work properly, and we weren't charging when we didn't,” Des Traynor, Intercom's co-founder and chief strategy officer, tells Anurag Rana, senior technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. In this Tech Disruptors episode, Traynor explains why Intercom chose to cannibalize its seat-based support software as a service to launch an AI agent that targets 60–70% resolution, and why outcome pricing changes everything from product design to unit economics. They also dig into what separates resolution from “deflection,” why most companies shouldn't self-build support agents, how Intercom mixes models — including its own CX models — to optimize quality/cost and why 2026 is about expanding Fin from support into broader customer-facing roles.

Ericsson's recent headway in securing contracts for 5G enterprise applications signals a rise in commercial deployments as business customers gain confidence in the technology's potential to improve returns. In this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Tech Disruptors podcast, Ericsson SVP and Head of Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions Asa Tamsons joins BI senior telecom analyst John Butler to discuss the outlook for enterprise 5G applications and how customers are using the technology to boost efficiency and generate higher returns. The discussion also touches on 6G and its potential to embed intelligence across business operations, partly through AI, while building on 5G's ability to interconnect devices.

Mastercard's push into stablecoin infrastructure, including its proposed acquisition of BVNK, alongside advances in enabling agentic payments, reflects an evolution rather than a disruption of its core business. In this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Tech Disruptors podcast, Jorn Lambert, Mastercard's chief product officer, joins BI fintech and payments analyst Diksha Gera to discuss how Mastercard is extending its value proposition around trust into new environments — from owning the “plumbing” of stablecoins through interoperability and multi-rail enablement to acting as the “intent verifier” in emerging agentic payments. Listen to hear more about how Mastercard is shifting from a card network to an intelligent “switch” of multi-rail platforms, as AI agents begin to navigate merchant catalogs and execute autonomous transactions.

Concentrix CEO Chris Caldwell joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tamlin Bason to examine how AI is reshaping customer experience. As companies move from pilots to scaled deployment, Caldwell discusses how AI is enabling more personalized, real-time interactions, while introducing risks around consistency, trust and brand control. The conversation also explores the role of incumbents like Concentrix in bringing the scale needed to implement AI effectively, bridging the gap between emerging technology and enterprise execution. Caldwell shares where he sees value forming across the customer-experience ecosystem, and why protecting brand identity remains critical as automation deepens.

“Enterprises cannot vibe operate,” declares Madhav Thattai, GM and EVP of Salesforce AI, on this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Tech Disruptors podcast. Thattai and BI senior technology analyst Anurag Rana discuss why Salesforce thinks the “SaaSpocalypse” narrative misses how agents change outcomes and how the company is trying to measure that shift with Agentic Work Units (AWUs) — a way to track work performed rather than just token inputs. Thattai outlines Salesforce's four-part agentic enterprise framework: system of context, system of work, system of agency and system of engagement. The conversation explores how large-language model flexibility plus deterministic workflows are used to reduce “prompt doom loops,” improve latency and manage cost. The discussion also covers how Salesforce is monetizing agents via license bundles and consumption, and why AWUs and session-trace tooling are positioned as budgeting and operational aids for CIOs and CFOs.

AI adoption is moving from experimentation to execution, exposing gaps in data quality and governance. Qlik CEO Mike Capone joins Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Software Analyst Sunil Rajgopal to discuss why enterprises must build strong data foundations rather than rely on plug-and-play LLMs. “SaaS isn't going away — it just has to be rewired,” Capone says, highlighting how AI is reshaping software architectures and limiting returns without strong data infrastructure. The discussion also covers Qlik's positioning, competitive dynamics and how AI-driven productivity is influencing growth and product strategy.

The assumption that output grows linearly with headcount no longer holds. As AI tools drive a step-change in productivity, companies are rethinking their operating models. In this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Owen Jennings, executive officer and business lead at Block, joins Bloomberg Intelligence Fintech and Payments Analyst Diksha Gera to discuss Block's decision to reduce its workforce and how AI is reshaping both internal operations and the company's products – from Cash App's MoneyBot, which helps automate financial planning and budgeting, to Square's upcoming ManagerBot, an AI-assistant designed to streamline SMB operations. Listen to hear more about how Block is deploying AI across its ecosystem — and how its approach differs from that of banks.

In banking, the AI question isn't “Can you build it?” — it's “Can you explain it, monitor it, and shut it off when required?” As the hype cycle moves past chatbots, a real competitive divide is emerging: institutions that can operationalize AI with auditability and control versus those layering copilots onto legacy workflows and hoping for the best. In this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Tech Disruptors podcast, Capital One's Chief Scientist and Head of Enterprise AI Prem Natarajan joins BI fintech and payments analyst Diksha Gera to discuss why the bank is building — not just buying — its AI stack, and what gives Capital One a technology edge over competitors. Listen in to hear more about the bank's expansive approach to AI as a capacity multiplier rather than a means to cut costs.

Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston and VP of Investor Relations Kathy Ta join Bloomberg Intelligence's Jake Silverman on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how optics are playing an increasingly critical role in networking inside and across AI data centers. They explore how the company is becoming a key supplier of systems and lasers to hyperscalers. Hurlston unpacks his broad and lengthy tenure as an executive across semiconductors and hardware and how it's helping him tackle new challenges as the data center evolves. The conversation also covers how Lumentum's past as a sleepier supplier to telecom networks positions it well to address today's AI networking needs.

Reddit's Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong discusses the impact of gen AI models on its platform and how the company is positioning itself in the era of chatbots and LLMs. Wong sits down with Bloomberg Intelligence's Global Head of Technology Research Mandeep Singh to discuss  the company's ads business and how it plans to leverage LLM search to boost engagement. All the metrics referenced in the episode are as of December 2025.

Resale is evolving from a fragmented, thrift-driven experience into a technology-enabled infrastructure layer for the apparel industry. James Reinhart, co-founder and CEO of ThredUp, joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior equity retail analyst Poonam Goyal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast. They discuss how automation, machine learning and AI are reshaping the economics of secondhand retail. He explains the “single-SKU” challenge that makes resale fundamentally different from traditional e-commerce, and how ThredUp's investment in supply-chain automation and data science aims to unlock scale, margin expansion and improved inventory velocity. Reinhart also explores the company's shift toward AI-driven discovery, its expansion into direct-selling capabilities and the growing role of resale as a recommerce partner to brands. He outlines why he believes technology — not just consumer demand — will determine which resale platforms achieve durable profitability in the next phase of retail disruption.

“No great company became a great company because they saved a lot of money,” says Eric Boyd, president of Microsoft's AI platform. “They became a great company because they delivered amazing innovative experiences.” In this episode of Tech Disruptors, Boyd explains to Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Anurag Rana how Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Machine Learning and Azure AI Foundry fit together. He also discusses what's required to move to broad usage from a pilot: securing enterprise data, retrieving the right context (including “IQ” tooling), evaluating prompts across models and managing costs with techniques like model routing.

“Not everything is an AI problem,” says IBM Software SVP and Chief Commercial Officer Rob Thomas. In this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Thomas and Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Anurag Rana discuss IBM's hybrid cloud and AI strategy, from Red Hat/OpenShift and containers for multicloud portability to why the mainframe remains the platform for real-time, high-availability transactions. Thomas outlines IBM's “new enterprise stack” and a layered, multimodel approach where orchestration and proprietary enterprise data matter more than any single frontier model — especially as sovereignty requirements rise. They also explore how system-of-record companies are best positioned to succeed in the AI era.

AI demand is scaling and infrastructure complexity is rising. Vultr CEO JJ Kardwell returns to the Bloomberg Intelligence Tech Disruptors podcast with an update on the market's AI cloud demand. He spoke to BI tech analyst Woo Jin Ho about production AI workloads, GPU utilization and lifecycle economics, global data-center strategy, supply-chain constraints and capital discipline, as well as outlining how privately held Vultr is positioning for durable growth in the industry's next phase.

“If anyone's going to disrupt Khan Academy, it should be us,” founder and CEO Sal Khan tells Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Tech Analyst Anurag Rana, discussing how AI can deliver personalized learning at scale if embedded in classrooms with teacher oversight, guardrails for minors and rigorous model evaluation. Khan explains Khanmigo's early GPT-4 roots, why Khan Academy is going multi-model to match use cases like Writing Coach and how district packaging helps cover compute costs while enabling monitoring and accountability. He also lays out a vision of the 2030 classroom where AI reduces teacher planning and grading burdens, supports small-group instruction and enables richer assessment, while warning workforce disruption may arrive faster than society is prepared for.

Lightmatter CEO Nick Harris joins Bloomberg Intelligence's Kunjan Sobhani and Jake Silverman to explain why lasers — not just chips — are the missing piece to making co-packaged optics practical at hyperscale. Harris unpacks Guide, Lightmatter's VLSP light engine, and Passage, the company's photonic interconnect platform, walking through real-world reliability, density and power trade-offs, and how new EDA and foundry partnerships (Synopsys, Cadence, GUC) move photonics into standard semiconductor workflows. The conversation covers near-package vs co-package optics, deployment timing, who the early buyers will be, and the milestones to watch as photonics shifts from lab demos to production racks.

Russia invasion of Ukraine “has completely reframed perceptions of drone utility and value. Where once high-end, exquisite systems dominated the procurement logic, today there's a much clearer recognition that quantity and replaceability are just as critical,” says AV Chief Growth Officer Church Hutton. On this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Hutton tells Bloomberg Intelligence senior defense weapons analyst Wayne Sanders how the landscape of drone technologies and the scalability of platforms must balance between rapid production and programs of record, while maintaining a technological advantage over adversary weapon systems. Critical to this process is reducing “cost per effect” so that we're no longer shooting down $10,000 drones with million-dollar interceptors. AV and other defense tech companies continue to have this as their mission statement.

Ciena is expanding from its telecom optical roots to become a critical enabler of AI-driven data-center infrastructure. In this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Tech Disruptors podcast, Ciena Executive Advisor Scott McFeely joins BI analyst Woo Jin Ho to discuss how the company's optical technology has evolved alongside hyperscale cloud and AI workloads, from coherent optics and WaveLogic DSPs to optical pluggables for scale across applications. They also explore how AI is reshaping optical demand around and inside the data center, Ciena's move deeper into the rack through its Nubis acquisition and how its expansion into AI changes its intermediate-term growth trajectory.

‘We've seen an incredible acceleration of true automation, where AI agents were able to fulfill a significant amount of engagement with a consumer, whether it be voice or chat-based,” says Scott Russell, CEO of Nice. He sits down with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh to talk about the deployment of AI agents for contact centers. From fine-tuning of large language models to handling a high volume of transactions, the discussion focuses on the various considerations for AI agents related to customer service across a range of industries.

Quantum computing is extending beyond the lab to redefine how we address complex problems. On this episode of Tech Disruptors, IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi joins Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Jake Silverman and Kunjan Sobhani to explain what quantum computing is and how performance, reliability and cost will determine the winners of the race for fault tolerance. The conversation also explores how quantum computing can complement future AI systems — enabling new breakthroughs in security, networking and high-impact applications like materials and life science — while setting up a “winner-takes-most” competitive dynamic in the industry.

Powering businesses to accomplish their daily work remains Intuit's central mission, using AI and a network of human experts to accomplish a wide range of business tasks for more than 100 million customers, from closing accounting books, processing payroll to preparing taxes. In this Tech Disruptors podcast episode, Intuit CTO Alex Balazs speaks with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Niraj Patel about the company's evolution from a provider of desktop products to its latest AI agents. Balazs also touches on its data-scale differentiator, how GenAI is reshaping software and Intuit's future position as a financial-operating system.Tech Disruptors: Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

“AI removes the friction from the intent to the implementation,” says Amanda Silver, corporate vice president and head of products, apps and agents at Microsoft. She talks with Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Anurag Rana about how copilots and agents are collapsing the software lifecycle — from natural-language ideas to code, tests and operations — shifting developers to reviewing and governance from typing, and making “evals” the new testing standard. She cites big-tech technical-debt wins, such as .NET and Java upgrades requiring 70–80% less manual effort, and SRE agents that reduce remediation time. Additionally, the two discuss GitHub Copilot, already among top contributors in key repos and adopted across most large enterprises.

“Internally, we've kind of moved from a model where kind of engineering kind of owned R&D, to a model where everyone is now in R&D” says Canva CTO Brendan Humphreys. On this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Humphreys tells Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Anurag Rana how the web-native platform is expanding into the enterprise while leaning into AI, including a disciplined API layer to ship quickly, broad use of coding assistants with strict human-in-the-loop review and hiring for “AI-native” skills alongside companywide experimentation. Humphreys also covers how acquisitions like Affinity and Magic Brief fit the road map, and why compliance, governance and brand control are central as Canva targets 1,000-plus employee companies.

Embedded finance — integrating payments and financial services directly into apps and platforms — is entering its next phase, shifting from niche fintech use cases to core infrastructure for global players. In this episode of Tech Disruptors, Marqeta CEO Mike Milotich joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Diksha Gera to discuss how embedded finance, buy now, pay later and flexible credentials are reshaping payments at the point of sale, online and in store. They explore Marqeta's competitive positioning, AI-driven personalization, the regulation vs. speed trade-off and why Europe could be an underappreciated growth lever as embedded finance moves upmarket.

Consumer credit may be approaching its foundational AI moment — with buy now, pay later emerging as the first visible act. On this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Max Levchin, CEO and founder of Affirm and co-founder of PayPal, joins Bloomberg Intelligence global fintech and payments analyst Diksha Gera to discuss how machine learning is replacing static underwriting with real-time, transaction-level intelligence. They also explore why this shift could fundamentally reshape the economics of consumer lending over the next decade.

Now an annual tradition on the Bloomberg Intelligence Tech Disruptors podcast, John Chambers, former Cisco CEO and founder of JC2 Ventures, sits down with hardware analyst Woo Jin Ho to kick off 2026 with his latest predictions for the tech sector and the global economy. Chambers argues that AI is entering a phase of rapid adoption — driving enterprise productivity gains, reshaping capital allocation and compressing winner–loser cycles across industries. The conversation explores AI infrastructure investment, enterprise adoption, cybersecurity risks and the implications for labor markets, M&A, IPO activity and market volatility, with Chambers remaining bullish on AI's long-term impact despite near-term disruption.

The private equity marketplace is increasingly competitive, making it difficult to win a seat at the table on hot deals. AT&T's in-house private investment arm, AT&T Ventures, seeks to stand out by making strategic investments via a founder-friendly approach, targeting the companies that are helping to shape the future of communications, such as satellite providers, edge computing firms, AI-RAN developers, security companies and many more. AT&T Ventures Head Vikram Taneja joins Bloomberg Intelligence's senior telecom analyst, John Butler, to discuss the company's approach to investing, his thoughts on where communications technologies are headed and how his group aims to capitalize on current and future trends.

Webtoon pioneered the vertical scrolling format nearly 20 years ago, and has been expanding the genres of its content since. CFO David Lee joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Woo Jin Ho on this Tech Disruptors episode to explain how the company is building out its global-content platform using AI-driven creator tools, advanced data infrastructure and high-throughput content workflows. He discusses the economics of paid content, margin impacts from infrastructure modernization and how partnerships with Disney and Warner Bros. expand Webtoon's IP engine. He offers a sharp look at where AI, platform scale, and digital media monetization converge.

Shopping is shifting from keyword-based search toward AI-driven, conversational guidance. Rajiv Mehta, Amazon.com's vice president of Search and Conversational Shopping, joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss Rufus, Amazon's AI shopping assistant that integrates large language models with the company's commerce data and personalization capabilities. Rufus helps customers identify suitable products using natural language, images and even handwritten lists. Mehta outlines how features such as price history, “help me decide,” image upload and agentic tools like price alerts and auto-buy are reshaping product discovery, conversion and customer loyalty on Amazon — and why he expects highly personalized, agent-supported shopping experiences to define the next phase of retail.

Drone technology has had a prolonged evolution, with companies exploring viable use cases for mainstream adoption. Adam Woodworth, CEO of Alphabet's Wing subsidiary, talks to Bloomberg Intelligence tech analyst Mandeep Singh about drone delivery in the US and how he expects it to ramp up for consumer delivery of lighter packages and groceries. The discussion also covers form factor evolution for drones, regulatory framework, regulations and overlap with Waymo's use of sensors for safety in the case of autonomous vehicles.

“…A successful agentic enterprise deployment means each of your departments are fundamentally different,” Salesforce's SVP of Product Marketing for AI Sanjana Parulekar says, as she joins Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Anurag Rana to unpack what it really takes to scale Agentic AI beyond pilots: getting data AI-ready; adding context and governance; blending deterministic workflows with LLM reasoning via hybrid reasoning and monitoring cost and quality with observability tools. They also cover voice agents, cross-agent orchestration with MuleSoft Agent Fabric, model flexibility, change management, and real deployments.

“Open doesn't mean a free for all, but open will win.” Workday CTO Peter Bailis joins Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Anurag Rana to explain how the people-and-money system of record is evolving into an open, AI-ready platform — combining zero-copy data access with strict governance and API-first design. He outlines how Sana, Illuminate, Flowise and Paradox fit together as a front door for work, embedded HR and finance agents, open-source agent building and streamlined recruiting.

Search is shifting to intelligent, context-rich answers from static links. You.com CEO Richard Socher joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior software analyst Sunil Rajgopal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how You.com powers AI search for companies such as DuckDuckGo, while differentiating from enterprise peers like Glean and Exa through its web indexing, real-time accuracy and privacy-first design. “The biggest factor to get LLMs to give accurate, non-hallucinated answers is the search infrastructure layer,” Socher says. The discussion also covers the market opportunity, competitive landscape and future initiatives.

“We think that for every gigawatt, it's about 25 exabytes of new flash creation,” says Greg Matson, SVP and head of products and marketing at Solidigm. Matson joins Bloomberg Intelligence's Jake Silverman on the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how Solidigm is powering AI's growing data demands. The conversation explores the company's evolution into a data-center-focused pure play, its innovations in high-capacity SSDs and how it's positioning to lead in the next era of gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure.

“The world's now flipped to inference — and it's limited by power. With the same energy, we can deliver four times the output of a Blackwell,” says SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang. Liang joins Bloomberg Intelligence's Kunjan Sobhani in this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to explain how SambaNova's air-cooled, 10-kilowatt racks and “data-center-in-90-days” model are helping enterprises and governments scale up AI faster — and greener. The discussion covers the rise of sovereign-AI deployments in the UK, Europe and Australia, the economics of hybrid data centers and why energy efficiency — not just compute power — might define the next phase of AI infrastructure.

“We are more than 10x safer on many key safety metrics than an average human driver” says Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo chief product officer. Saswat joins Bloomberg Intelligence's Mandeep Singh to talk about the inflection in autonomous driving and how Waymo plans to scale across more cities. From the sensors used in Waymo's AVs, the evolution of its driver system and expansion of its partnerships, the discussion focuses on opportunities and remaining challenges around the rollout of AVs.

“We are moving beyond simple query-response to task completion.” AWS's Swami Sivasubramanian joins Bloomberg Intelligence Software and Technology Analyst Anurag Rana to contrast consumer chatbots with enterprise agents and the controls they require. Topics include Agent Core for secure deployment (identity, tool use, memory, observability), QuickSuite for business users, Kero for developer workflows, and Transform for code modernization. Their conversation extends into data access across silos, model choice on Bedrock, and why production agents demand governance, connectors, and context. 

Emerging AI-hardware technologies are poised to reshape data centers. Penguin Solutions CTO Phil Pokorny joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Woo Jin Ho to discuss how the company's bespoke engineering approach, which blends deep technical expertise with differentiated hardware and software, helps enterprises, neo-clouds and sovereign entities tackle the complexity of AI deployments across markets. The conversation also explores what it will take to stay ahead in the next phase of AI-infrastructure growth.

AI infrastructure is becoming central to enterprise innovation as companies seek faster app delivery and efficient use of computing resources. In this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Rafay Systems CEO Haseeb Budhani joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior software analyst Sunil Rajgopal to discuss how Rafay helps enterprises and emerging cloud providers simplify AI deployment, optimize infrastructure costs and deliver scalable, developer-friendly experiences. The conversation highlights Rafay's consumption-based model and focus on orchestration and automation, as well as its growing role in enabling enterprises to build and monetize AI-driven platforms.