{"id":138663,"date":"2025-12-09T17:19:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/09\/ai-summit-2025-hard-questions-or-more-hype\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T17:19:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:19:04","slug":"ai-summit-2025-hard-questions-or-more-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/12\/09\/ai-summit-2025-hard-questions-or-more-hype\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Summit 2025: Hard Questions Or More Hype?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the 10th annual AI Summit kicks off at the cavernous Javits Center in New York City. The promoters <a href=\"https:\/\/welcome.informaengage.com\/welcome2025\/the-ai-summit-new-york-2025\/?utm_source=eloqua&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=16_LE_AINY25_Auto06_A_PR_REG_9134198442_WELCOMEGUIDE_STO_20251121&amp;sp_cid=13326&amp;utm_content=16_LE_AINY25_Auto06_A_PR_REG_9134198442_WELCOMEGUIDE_STO_20251121&amp;sp_rid=13814286&amp;sp_aid=18915&amp;sp_eh=b480ba69fbaf1e5e19fe328d6244f7839980f97905985b936bc4a97f6326e3f5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">describe<\/a> it as an event that \u201c[b]rings together visionary leaders, innovators and technologists who are shaping the future of artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Summit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year, there were over 5,000 attendees, over 100 exhibitors, and 350 speakers, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/newyork.theaisummit.com\/about?page=2&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">official website<\/a>. This year promises those numbers will be exceeded. The keynote <a href=\"https:\/\/newyork.theaisummit.com\/featured-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">speakers<\/a> include such notables as:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Matthew C. Fraser, Chief Technology Officer, The City of New York<\/li>\n<li>Cecilia Kushner, Chief Strategy Officer, NYC Economic Development Corporation<\/li>\n<li>Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, Chief AI Officer, eBay<\/li>\n<li>Anusha Dandapani, Chief, AI Hub, United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC)<\/li>\n<li>Jorge Reis-Filho, Chief AI and Data Scientist, Oncology R&amp;D, AstraZeneca<\/li>\n<li>Terry Doyle, Managing Partner, TELUS Global Ventures<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The overall speaker lineup reflects AI\u2019s extension from a tech curiosity 10 years ago to being embedded, for better or worse, across government, commerce, finance, and healthcare. Legal can\u2019t afford to ignore this shift and its ramifications and risks.<\/p>\n<p>I will be there covering for Above the Law and reporting what\u2019s being talked about and perhaps what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p>But before we get to that, it\u2019s worth pausing to see how far we\u2019ve come in the decade since that first Summit in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Past 10 Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve gone from AlphaGo beating a grand master at Go (2016) to LLMs (2022) to chatbots (2023) to agentic AI (2025) to speaking of AGI as a realistic possibility, all in one decade.<\/p>\n<p>As for technology in general, here\u2019s where we were in 2016:<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Amazon released the Amazon Echo Dot<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Slack was the hot new workplace tool\u00a0with 4 million daily active users<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 iPhone 7\u00a0was the newest phone (no Face ID, and first haptic home button)<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Windows 10\u00a0was still a relativity new operating system<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Netflix was starting to compete seriously with cable<\/p>\n<p>The hottest play was Hamilton. Uber was becoming a real thing. In early 2016, a bitcoin was about $400 and WeWork was reportedly valued at $16 billion.<\/p>\n<p>And in legal, in 2016:<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Clio published its first Legal Trends Report<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Most Biglaw firms were still debating whether to allow lawyers to use things like Dropbox\u00a0for client files<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Document review was still almost entirely human-powered\u00a0\u2014 predictive coding was \u201ccutting edge\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Legal project management software was considered \u201cexperimental\u201d\u00a0by most firms<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019ve come a long way.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Which makes this year\u2019s Summit particularly interesting: has the AI industry matured along with the technology, or are we just experiencing the same hype cycles at higher and even dangerous volume?<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s a Lawyer Doing at the AI Summit<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I attended and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/2024\/12\/ai-insights-for-legal-ten-key-takeaways-from-summit-ai-new-york\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about<\/a> this conference last year. First and foremost, it\u2019s an opportunity to escape the legal tech conference bubble and see and hear what people in other businesses and professions are thinking about and doing. Like CES, which I\u2019ll cover early next year, it often provides fresh perspectives.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, with a conference this size, it\u2019s sometimes hard to get a good handle on what\u2019s really important. There are 11 tracks (the Summit calls them stages) with sessions that overlap. That makes planning challenging. Indeed, as I wrote last year, I have the feeling that the conference sometimes tries too hard and to do too much. That doesn\u2019t make it a bad conference, just a challenging one.<\/p>\n<p>Also, like most big conferences, the AI Summit is driven by vendors and exhibitors and is by design a bit of a rah-rah event celebrating AI. That also doesn\u2019t necessarily make it all bad, but like CES, you have to take some of what\u2019s said and exhibited with a grain of salt.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Sessions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a huge and daunting number of sessions. Many are highly technical and some are vendor specific. But many are educational focusing on where we are with AI and how AI platforms can be practically implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, I\u2019m approaching the Summit with three questions drawn from the <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/12\/like-lawyers-in-pompeii-is-legal-ignoring-the-coming-ai-crisis-part-ii\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent series<\/a> I co-authored with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/melissarogozinski\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melissa Rogozinski<\/a>: Will the sessions acknowledge the crisis confronting the infrastructure required to support AI ambitions? Will anyone confront the verification paradox, the reality that verifying AI outputs often costs more than the efficiency gained? And third, will the conversation move beyond vendor enthusiasm to implementation reality? In that regard, there are several sessions that look particularly interesting that I plan to attend:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Who Owns Intelligence Wins: Escaping the AI \u201cRent Trap\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The AI Backbone: How Cutting-Edge Infrastructure is Powering the Next Wave of Innovation in Science and Industry<\/li>\n<li>Betting It All on AI: C-Suite Confessions on Risk, Reward, and Reality<\/li>\n<li>Venture Capitalist Matchmaking: Finding Your Perfect Fit<\/li>\n<li>The Investor\u2019s Crystal Ball: What\u2019s Next?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019m hoping that at least some of these sessions will get at the very things we talked about in our series: infrastructure requirements that may not be met as AI platforms expand, economic models that don\u2019t quite add up, and the persistent gap between what vendors promise and what businesses can actually implement.<\/p>\n<p>The question is whether presenters will confront these realities or perpetuate comfortable fictions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Else I May be Watching<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I also plan to attend the City of New York\u2019s presentation on using AI to improve access to justice. I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/?s=ai+summit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about<\/a> what the City was doing last year and its impact; it will be interesting to see where the City is this year.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a smattering of sessions on AI and its impact on people and cybersecurity. There are sessions on determining ROI of AI, how it can be used to enhance storytelling and creativity, along with more philosophical sessions on the role of regulation. Of course, agentic AI is front and center.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll also focus on sessions covering the tension between innovation and regulation, case studies in real-world deployment, cross-industry comparisons, training, and, perhaps most critically, sessions addressing hallucinations and the verification paradox we\u2019ve been writing about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Game Time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, if it sounds like there\u2019s more than I can possibly cover, you\u2019re right. My conference plan isn\u2019t set in stone. Like most of these conferences, I\u2019ll make game-time decisions based on where the substance is and what I\u2019m hearing.<\/p>\n<p>It should be interesting. Will the Summit confront the questions about AI infrastructure, verification costs, and implementation reality? Or will it be another celebration of potential without accountability? Will sessions examine AI for societal good? Or will it be all AI for AI\u2019s sake? \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n<p><em><strong>Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">TechLaw Crossroads<\/a>, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/12\/ai-summit-2025-hard-questions-or-more-hype\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI Summit 2025: Hard Questions Or More Hype?<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This week, the 10th annual AI Summit kicks off at the cavernous Javits Center in New York City. The promoters <a href=\"https:\/\/welcome.informaengage.com\/welcome2025\/the-ai-summit-new-york-2025\/?utm_source=eloqua&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=16_LE_AINY25_Auto06_A_PR_REG_9134198442_WELCOMEGUIDE_STO_20251121&amp;sp_cid=13326&amp;utm_content=16_LE_AINY25_Auto06_A_PR_REG_9134198442_WELCOMEGUIDE_STO_20251121&amp;sp_rid=13814286&amp;sp_aid=18915&amp;sp_eh=b480ba69fbaf1e5e19fe328d6244f7839980f97905985b936bc4a97f6326e3f5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">describe<\/a> it as an event that \u201c[b]rings together visionary leaders, innovators and technologists who are shaping the future of artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Summit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year, there were over 5,000 attendees, over 100 exhibitors, and 350 speakers, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/newyork.theaisummit.com\/about?page=2&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">official website<\/a>. This year promises those numbers will be exceeded. The keynote <a href=\"https:\/\/newyork.theaisummit.com\/featured-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">speakers<\/a> include such notables as:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Matthew C. Fraser, Chief Technology Officer, The City of New York<\/li>\n<li>Cecilia Kushner, Chief Strategy Officer, NYC Economic Development Corporation<\/li>\n<li>Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, Chief AI Officer, eBay<\/li>\n<li>Anusha Dandapani, Chief, AI Hub, United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC)<\/li>\n<li>Jorge Reis-Filho, Chief AI and Data Scientist, Oncology R&amp;D, AstraZeneca<\/li>\n<li>Terry Doyle, Managing Partner, TELUS Global Ventures<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The overall speaker lineup reflects AI\u2019s extension from a tech curiosity 10 years ago to being embedded, for better or worse, across government, commerce, finance, and healthcare. Legal can\u2019t afford to ignore this shift and its ramifications and risks.<\/p>\n<p>I will be there covering for Above the Law and reporting what\u2019s being talked about and perhaps what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p>But before we get to that, it\u2019s worth pausing to see how far we\u2019ve come in the decade since that first Summit in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Past 10 Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve gone from AlphaGo beating a grand master at Go (2016) to LLMs (2022) to chatbots (2023) to agentic AI (2025) to speaking of AGI as a realistic possibility, all in one decade.<\/p>\n<p>As for technology in general, here\u2019s where we were in 2016:<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Amazon released the Amazon Echo Dot<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Slack was the hot new workplace tool\u00a0with 4 million daily active users<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 iPhone 7\u00a0was the newest phone (no Face ID, and first haptic home button)<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Windows 10\u00a0was still a relativity new operating system<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Netflix was starting to compete seriously with cable<\/p>\n<p>The hottest play was Hamilton. Uber was becoming a real thing. In early 2016, a bitcoin was about $400 and WeWork was reportedly valued at $16 billion.<\/p>\n<p>And in legal, in 2016:<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Clio published its first Legal Trends Report<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Most Biglaw firms were still debating whether to allow lawyers to use things like Dropbox\u00a0for client files<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Document review was still almost entirely human-powered\u00a0\u2014 predictive coding was \u201ccutting edge\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\uf0b7\u00a0 Legal project management software was considered \u201cexperimental\u201d\u00a0by most firms<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019ve come a long way.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Which makes this year\u2019s Summit particularly interesting: has the AI industry matured along with the technology, or are we just experiencing the same hype cycles at higher and even dangerous volume?<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s a Lawyer Doing at the AI Summit<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I attended and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/2024\/12\/ai-insights-for-legal-ten-key-takeaways-from-summit-ai-new-york\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about<\/a> this conference last year. First and foremost, it\u2019s an opportunity to escape the legal tech conference bubble and see and hear what people in other businesses and professions are thinking about and doing. Like CES, which I\u2019ll cover early next year, it often provides fresh perspectives.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, with a conference this size, it\u2019s sometimes hard to get a good handle on what\u2019s really important. There are 11 tracks (the Summit calls them stages) with sessions that overlap. That makes planning challenging. Indeed, as I wrote last year, I have the feeling that the conference sometimes tries too hard and to do too much. That doesn\u2019t make it a bad conference, just a challenging one.<\/p>\n<p>Also, like most big conferences, the AI Summit is driven by vendors and exhibitors and is by design a bit of a rah-rah event celebrating AI. That also doesn\u2019t necessarily make it all bad, but like CES, you have to take some of what\u2019s said and exhibited with a grain of salt.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Sessions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a huge and daunting number of sessions. Many are highly technical and some are vendor specific. But many are educational focusing on where we are with AI and how AI platforms can be practically implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, I\u2019m approaching the Summit with three questions drawn from the <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/12\/like-lawyers-in-pompeii-is-legal-ignoring-the-coming-ai-crisis-part-ii\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent series<\/a> I co-authored with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/melissarogozinski\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melissa Rogozinski<\/a>: Will the sessions acknowledge the crisis confronting the infrastructure required to support AI ambitions? Will anyone confront the verification paradox, the reality that verifying AI outputs often costs more than the efficiency gained? And third, will the conversation move beyond vendor enthusiasm to implementation reality? In that regard, there are several sessions that look particularly interesting that I plan to attend:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Who Owns Intelligence Wins: Escaping the AI \u201cRent Trap\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The AI Backbone: How Cutting-Edge Infrastructure is Powering the Next Wave of Innovation in Science and Industry<\/li>\n<li>Betting It All on AI: C-Suite Confessions on Risk, Reward, and Reality<\/li>\n<li>Venture Capitalist Matchmaking: Finding Your Perfect Fit<\/li>\n<li>The Investor\u2019s Crystal Ball: What\u2019s Next?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019m hoping that at least some of these sessions will get at the very things we talked about in our series: infrastructure requirements that may not be met as AI platforms expand, economic models that don\u2019t quite add up, and the persistent gap between what vendors promise and what businesses can actually implement.<\/p>\n<p>The question is whether presenters will confront these realities or perpetuate comfortable fictions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Else I May be Watching<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I also plan to attend the City of New York\u2019s presentation on using AI to improve access to justice. I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/?s=ai+summit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about<\/a> what the City was doing last year and its impact; it will be interesting to see where the City is this year.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a smattering of sessions on AI and its impact on people and cybersecurity. There are sessions on determining ROI of AI, how it can be used to enhance storytelling and creativity, along with more philosophical sessions on the role of regulation. Of course, agentic AI is front and center.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll also focus on sessions covering the tension between innovation and regulation, case studies in real-world deployment, cross-industry comparisons, training, and, perhaps most critically, sessions addressing hallucinations and the verification paradox we\u2019ve been writing about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Game Time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, if it sounds like there\u2019s more than I can possibly cover, you\u2019re right. My conference plan isn\u2019t set in stone. Like most of these conferences, I\u2019ll make game-time decisions based on where the substance is and what I\u2019m hearing.<\/p>\n<p>It should be interesting. Will the Summit confront the questions about AI infrastructure, verification costs, and implementation reality? Or will it be another celebration of potential without accountability? Will sessions examine AI for societal good? Or will it be all AI for AI\u2019s sake? \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\">\n<p><em><strong>Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techlawcrossroads.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">TechLaw Crossroads<\/a>, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/2025\/12\/ai-summit-2025-hard-questions-or-more-hype\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI Summit 2025: Hard Questions Or More Hype?<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the 10th annual AI Summit kicks off at the cavernous Javits Center in New York City. The promoters describe it as an event that \u201c[b]rings together visionary leaders, innovators and technologists who are shaping the future of artificial intelligence.\u201d The Summit Last year, there were over 5,000 attendees, over 100 exhibitors, and 350 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}