Clarity is a Leadership Responsibility

I spent the week following Davos conversations at World Economic Forum 2026, looking at them through an insurance & risk lens.

Across different sessions, the people making trillion-dollar decisions are all watching the same constraint: Energy.

Not just as a climate issue, but as an economic bottleneck. Why?

Because the cost of intelligence is plummeting and is effectively and eventually becoming the cost of energy. (Peng Xiao noted this shift explicitly).

Context: The price per million input tokens dropped from ~ $20 in 2022 to just 7 cents in 2024.

If you operate at the intersection of AI, Energy, and Risk, here are three useful frames of thinking:

1️⃣ For Risk Managers Andrés Gluski noted we are "operating the grid like it is the 1950s." The takeaway: Your infrastructure vulnerability is now a multiplier. The work done here is critical to the stability of the entire AI ecosystem.

2️⃣ For Underwriters Marc Benioff asked, "What is more important - trust or growth?" The takeaway: This resonates deeply with the eternal underwriting tension: growing topline vs. protecting the bottom line. Growth without trust is just borrowing time from your future balance sheet.

3️⃣ For Brokers & Risk Advisors While we are all proud specialists in a particular area, we need to think across the full lifecycle: Get it - Fund it - Build it - Run it. The takeaway: AI doesn’t spin up out of nowhere. Risk travels from the power, concrete, and labor phase (execution risk) all the way to operation.

4️⃣ Signals to Watch • Power price volatility → intelligence cost trend • Grid delays → cost of capital from schedule risk • Physical climate risk → retained risk via deductibles and exclusions • AI load growth → concentration risk for utilities and reinsurers

Bottom Line: If the price of intelligence is the end game, are power contracts becoming as strategic as financing terms? Curious where this is showing up most for you right now.

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Clean Power Whisperer™ Perspectives Educational insights on risk, insurance, and capital for AI • Energy • Climate

Links

Building AI for the Long Term (Minute 5 and 8, Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/how-can-we-unlock-new-sources-of-growth/)

Conversation with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft (Minute 9, Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/conversation-with-satya-nadella-ceo-of-microsoft/)

Conversation with Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase (The very first question! Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/conversation-with-jamie-dimon-chairman-and-ceo-of-jpmorgan-chase/)

Where Can New Growth Come From? (Minute 44, Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/how-can-we-unlock-new-sources-of-growth/)

Who is Winning on Energy Security? (Minute 21, Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/who-is-winning-on-energy-security/)

Scaling AI: Now Comes the Hard Part (Minute 42, Link https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2026/sessions/scaling-ai-now-comes-the-hard-part/)

Microsoft, On the Issues, April 2025 (Unlocking AI’s global potential: progress, productivity, and workforce development) https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/04/10/unlocking-ai-global-potential/

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