#337 Debdas Sen: Why AI Without ROI Will Die (Again)
From Eye On A.I. by Craig S. Smith
April 23, 2026 · 51 min · Episode 337
About this episode
Debdas Sen discusses the importance of proving ROI in AI applications to avoid another AI winter.
What does it actually take to prove that AI delivers real value in the industries that keep the world running? In this episode of Eye on AI, Craig Smith sits down with Debdas Sen, CEO of TCG Digital and Joint Managing Director of Lummus Digital, to explore what serious enterprise AI looks like when it is applied to some of the most complex, high-stakes problems on the planet. Problems like compressing years of catalyst research into weeks, predicting refinery failures before they happen, and accelerating drug development timelines that could determine how long a life-saving medicine takes to reach patients. Debdas has spent nearly 30 years in data and AI, living through every hype cycle from the data warehousing era of 1997 to today's agentic revolution. He makes a compelling case that the AI community has one defining job right now: prove the ROI, or risk another AI winter. We also get into what makes TCG Digital's platform mcube™ different. It is not a horizontal tool. It is a domain-first, agentic AI ecosystem built for the kinds of massive, multi-variable problems that horizontal platforms cannot touch. Debdas breaks down how mcube™ bridges legacy enterprise infrastructure…
People in this episode
Host: Craig S. Smith
Guest: Debdas Sen
Topics covered
- AI value
- enterprise AI
- ROI
- data protection
- agentic systems
- hybrid modeling
Keywords
- AI
- ROI
- enterprise
- data
- agentic
- hybrid modeling
- mcube
- catalyst research
- refinery failures
- drug development
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: TCG Digital, Lummus Digital
Products: mcube™
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