In the face of growing market scrutiny over the soaring costs of artificial intelligence infrastructure and development, Nitesh Sharan, Chief Financial Officer of SoundHound AI, Inc., offers a counter-narrative: the industry is not over-investing, but under-investing.
Speaking on the state of the AI revolution, Sharan directly challenged the notion that the sector’s expenditures are unsustainable. “Every era of fundamental disruption—from the railroad to electricity to the internet, cloud, and mobile—has seen some skepticism,” Sharan stated. “Growth and change don’t happen linearly… but the overall trajectory of the AI industry keeps rising.”
Sharan, who joined the voice AI leader when it was still a private company, positioned the current moment as a historic inflection point. “Having witnessed many inflection points in my career, I believe this may be the biggest yet. And we’re still in the early days,” he said.
Untapped Potential Demands Greater Investment
The CFO argued that current applications barely scratch the surface of AI’s potential. “Across industries—from education to healthcare and financial services—the potential of generative and agentic AI remains largely untapped,” Sharan explained. “From a broader view, this transformation is just beginning, and collectively, we’re not investing enough across the breadth of ways to utilize these technologies.”
He framed SoundHound’s own two-decade journey, founded by Stanford PhDs on the belief in natural conversation with machines, as a testament to long-term commitment in the face of cyclical doubt.
ALSO READ: DROPBOX NAMES ROSS TENNENBAUM AS NEW CFO
Building a Foundation for Scale
Reflecting on SoundHound’s 2022 public listing during a turbulent market, Sharan called it a “defining milestone” that required building a robust financial foundation. His focus has been on “scaling the finance function from the ground up,” implementing systems and talent to enable agility. This groundwork, he noted, has supported capital raises, market expansion, and new pricing models aligned with the company’s strategic vision.
“Our mission is simple but also ambitious: to change how people interact with technology and make it accessible to everyone,” Sharan said. “We’re not repaving old roads—we’re building new ones.”
Internal AI Adoption Driving Efficiency
Demonstrating a commitment to practicing what they preach, Sharan revealed that SoundHound is actively deploying AI within its own corporate functions, including his own purview over finance, strategy, HR, and legal.
“The impact is becoming visible across the company—getting twice as much done with our existing staff,” he reported, citing “green shoots of efficiency and innovation.”
The finance team is taking a measured but active approach to integration. While exercising caution in areas like full accounting automation, they are leveraging AI for research, documentation, and testing tools in planning and payables. “We’re experimenting broadly, staying open-minded,” Sharan said, forecasting, “I expect we’ll have even more to share a year from now.”
Sharan’s comments underscore a confident stance from a growing AI pure-play: the current costs are not a bubble, but the necessary foundation for a transformation he believes is still in its earliest chapters.
