The Revenge of the Middle: Managers, Memory, and the Real AI Bottleneck
AI spending is outpacing budgets, and most organizations don't know why. Dr. Serena Huang sits down with Val Bercovici, Chief AI Officer at WEKA, to unpack why enterprise AI costs keep rising despite falling model prices. They dig into the three tiers of enterprise token consumption, the memory shortage reshaping AI infrastructure, and how signal maxing can be a better metric for enterprise AI ROI. *Timestamps* (1:30) Meet Val Bercovici (3:44) Jevons paradox: 100x cheaper per token, 100x higher net bill (6:52) The real cost of agentic AI (8:31) Three tiers of enterprise token consumption (11:16) How agents learned to cut their own costs (16:48) Understanding AI Pricing (18:25) Signal maxing vs. token maxing (24:39) AI Memory: The cost driver no one budgeted for (35:14) What happens when AI subsidies end (47:34) Revenge of middle management *Links* Connect with Serena: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenahhuangphd/ Connect with Val: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinbercovici/ #WEKA #deepgeekspodcast #ValBercovici #AIinfrastructure #AIcosts #AIspending #enterpriseAI #AIROI #AIstrategy #AIbudgeting #AIoptimization #tokencosts #AItools #futureofAI #AIleadership