AI Hype vs. Real Value

Manish Dasaur is a Managing Director at PwC with over 20 years in data and AI, having helped 100+ clients navigate AI disruption and extract real business value from data, AI, and agentic AI initiatives. In this episode, he breaks down why most enterprise AI programs stall — and the playbook the winners are using instead.

Huge thanks to PwC for supporting this episode!

💰 The 30% benchmark — What "good" actually looks like: real efficiency gains clients are reporting across engineering, finance, HR, and supply chain

🔄 Workflows, not use cases — Why isolated pilots and POCs never show up in EBITDA, and how end-to-end workflow redesign does

🧪 Champion vs. challenger — Running a control group against your AI-automated process so ROI is demonstrated, not guessed

📞 Why customer care agents are still freaking hard — Context, CDP integration, billing systems, and voice-to-voice latency

💸 Tokenomics & FinOps — Consumption-based cost surprises, model selection, prompt engineering, and enforcing cost-per-workflow budgets

🔍 Auditing agentic behavior — Using AI to test AI, the missing "SOC 2 for agents," and certifying agents for sensitive use cases

👤 Human in the loop as an evolving scale — From reviewing 50% of outputs down to 10% as trust builds

🧠 88% do AI, 33% scale it — Building a culture of innovation, and why AI usage is showing up in performance reviews

💼 Jobs, reskilling & the operating model reset — Why 75%+ of jobs will be reskilled, not replacedIf you're an AI leader, platform engineer, or exec trying to turn AI experiments into P&L impact, this one's for you.

Links & Resources:

Connect with Manish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manishdasaur/

PwC AI: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/ai-analytics.html

PwC's 2026 AI Business Predictions: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/tech-effect/ai-analytics/ai-predictions.html

Timestamps:

[00:00] AI Hype vs Business Value

[00:44] API Spend Tracker Widget

[02:18] Tokenomics and FinOps for AI

[06:19] Measuring AI Impact Objectively

[11:07] AI in Support Workflows

[18:05] AI Innovation Culture

[27:16] MCP Servers and SOC 2

[29:14] Human in the Loop in evolving scale

[35:44] AI and Workforce Efficiency

[39:59] AI Transformation and Mindset

[42:19] Wrap-up