Closing the Gap Between AI and Business Value with Jeni Barovian

The AI era is generating investment on a scale that previous technology cycles never approached. The central question facing business leaders has shifted from whether to invest to how to convert that investment into lasting competitive advantage. TechArena Advisory breaks from the traditional consulting model by bringing C-suite operators to the table who have grown multi-billion-dollar businesses from the inside out and understand what it takes to turn investment into value.

Advisor Co-Founder Jeni Barovian has navigated technology waves that reshaped entire industries, from networking and edge computing to data center platforms and AI silicon, holding product and P&L leadership roles at Intel and Altera. What distinguishes her is not just technical depth but a discipline around equipping organizations to drive business outcomes. In this edition of our Q&A series, she discusses the gap between AI investment and realized value, the three areas where that gap most often surfaces, and what it takes to help organizations leverage AI to create scalable competitive edge.

Q1: What has changed in the tech landscape that made the Advisory a priority for you?

Throughout my career, I’ve worked through several major technology waves — the internet, mobility, and cloud. As disruptive as those were, AI is different.

The pace of change is orders of magnitude faster, and the scale of investment is unprecedented. According to Goldman Sachs, companies spent more than $400 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025 alone — data centers, GPUs, platforms, and the talent to run them. The firm projects that number will swell to $500 billion in 2026. Now, leadership teams across the value chain are under pressure to turn that investment into real economic value.

At the same time, AI is reshaping how companies operate and how work gets done. Nearly all knowledge worker roles will be affected by AI-driven workforce transformation.

This moment requires a different kind of leadership and guidance. The winners won’t just deploy AI — they’ll translate it into productivity, new revenue streams, and lasting competitive advantage.

Q2: What does your experience bring to this moment?

I’ve spent my career building and scaling complex product portfolios and businesses — networking, communications, edge computing, and data center platforms. That work sits right at the intersection of infrastructure, product strategy, and business outcomes.

My superpower is connecting technology decisions to business impact by equipping and empowering teams to act. That includes navigating some of the most complex forms of organizational change — businesses scaling through major technology transitions, and M&A from both sides of the table. When you’ve led through those conditions, you develop a sharper instinct for where strategy actually holds under pressure and where it doesn’t.

In this moment, companies are moving incredibly fast, but speed alone doesn’t create value. AI can streamline development, analysis, and execution across nearly every function — engineering, product management, marketing, operations. But without clear strategic direction, you get a lot of noise and homogeneity.

What organizations need right now are experienced operators who understand how to turn new technology into differentiated products, stronger go-to-market strategies, and measurable business results.

AI can accelerate everything, but only strategy turns that acceleration into value, and proven operators can bring that strategic judgement and clarity.

Q3: What challenges are business leaders facing that align with your practice areas?

The most common challenge I see right now is a gap between AI investment and realized value. Companies have invested heavily in infrastructure and tools, but many leaders are still figuring out how to translate that capability into real business impact. That challenge typically shows up in three areas where I spend most of my time advising.

First is product and technology strategy — identifying where technology actually creates differentiated value rather than just adding features.

Second is P&L optimization — ensuring new capabilities are built and sold in ways that generate revenue growth, and the organization is equipped to operate with maximum efficiency. That calculus increasingly includes sustainability: in my experience, companies that treat environmental requirements as a financial lever — not as a compliance exercise — tend to build more resilient P&Ls.

Third is organizational execution — aligning teams, workflows, and decision-making so the company can move at the pace the technology now allows. That often extends to governance — ensuring boards and senior leadership have clear accountability structures for transformation commitments, not just results.

My background running product organizations for multi-billion-dollar businesses bridges the gap between technology ambition and operational reality.

Q4: Are there key areas that you see most pertinent right now?

Three areas stand out to me right now:

First, turning AI infrastructure into economic value. Companies have already made enormous investments in compute, data platforms, and tooling. The question now is where and how that translates into top-line growth, operational velocity, and competitive advantage.

Next, product differentiation in an AI-accelerated world. When everyone has access to similar tools and models, the real differentiator becomes strategy — how companies apply AI to meet customers where they’re at today, and solve meaningful problems.

Finally, organizational adaptation. AI is changing how work gets done across nearly every function, and leaders need to rethink processes, decision-making, and team structures to take full advantage of it. The leaders who get this right invest as seriously in their people as in their platforms — because AI amplifies human capability, it doesn’t replace it.

These three shifts — infrastructure, products, and people — will determine who leads the next wave of technology.

Q5: What are the outcomes you’re targeting to drive?

I focus on helping companies accelerate their path to business impact.

Most leadership teams already know what they want to achieve. Where they get stuck is the gap between a compelling strategic vision and the organizational readiness to execute on it. I’ve sat on both sides of that gap — as an operator accountable for delivering results under pressure, and as someone who has led businesses through the kind of structural change where that gap can widen fast if you let it.

In working with leadership teams, my goal is to help them identify where technology can create the most meaningful value — whether that’s new revenue streams, faster innovation cycles, improved operational efficiency, or stronger market positioning.