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Cloud was supposed to simplify everything. Instead, a lot of CIOs are staring at bills that are far higher than anyone forecast, feeling locked into hyperscalers, and wondering where the business value went. I sit down with David Linthicum, former Deloitte chief cloud strategy officer turned tech influencer, to give an unvarnished reality check on cloud computing costs, cloud repatriation, and what “pragmatic architecture” looks like when budgets are real and timelines are slow.

We also get blunt about enterprise AI. David explains why so many AI-driven transformations stall out on two constraints: money and talent. We dig into why AI can cost 10 to 20 times more than traditional software, why “AI-first enterprise” messaging can be dangerous, and how leaders can pick high-impact use cases instead of trying to bolt generative AI onto everything. Along the way, we talk about how AI is reshaping SaaS economics as agents start using systems on behalf of humans, and what that means for vendors and buyers.

Then we tackle the loudest buzzword of the moment: agentic AI. Where does it shine as a productivity force multiplier, and where is it mostly hype when you try to deploy it at enterprise scale? We round out with underhyped edge computing opportunities and the growing backlash around data centers, power, and the grid. If you care about enterprise architecture, cloud strategy, generative AI, and what’s actually deployable right now, you’ll get a clear set of takeaways you can use this week. Subscribe, share this with a CIO or architect, and leave a review with the most overrated tech trend you want us to challenge next.

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