It was a dynamic week in enterprise tech as theCUBE and NYSE Wired brought together Silicon Valley’s top CMO leaders for a Super Studio event, showcasing cutting-edge AI innovations and the future of enterprise intelligence.

In the latest episode of the CUBE Podcast, theCUBE Research industry analysts John Furrier (pictured, left) and Dave Vellante (right) discussed the deepening collaboration between theCUBE and NYSE Wired, as well as the possible rise of agent washing.

TheCUBE is becoming deeply integrated with NYSE Wired, creating a seamless collaboration that enhances industry conversations. Furrier described theCUBE as the “GPU of [NYSE] Wired,” emphasizing its role in accelerating discussions and innovation. With NYSE Wired operating as an open community led by Brian Baumann, this partnership is fostering a new era of networking and knowledge-sharing.

“These new formations are happening, where people come together and form, on top of the public networks … these trust networks,” Furrier said.

Databricks and the impact of DeepSeek

The technology world is still assessing what comes next after the initial shock brought on by the release of the DeepSeek chatbot. It made Vellante wonder whether Databricks Inc. might be upset about how the whole process played out.

“It came out … last summer anyway, with their DBRX, their LLM; then they talked about how they used mixture experts and MOE,” Vellante said. “Nobody really paid attention, but that was kind of novel at the time.”

Databricks holds a true first-mover advantage — not just as a marketing phrase, but through the development of real, innovative technology. DeepSeek’s rise in popularity pushes it further into the mainstream, according to Furrier.

“I think Databricks has got to love this. Anyone who’s in AI infrastructure loves what’s happening, because the software layers and the innovations in software are growing so fast,” Furrier said. “That’s only going to propel more use of the databases, data lakes, software that comes out.”

Last week, enterprise software giant SAP SE announced a Databricks partnership to power AI with Business Data Cloud. That’s a positive development, according to Furrier.

“Databricks is winning because their software-first, AI-first approach to data is translating into developer value,” he said. “That’s going to be transformative.”

The year of agents, or agent washing?

Two key areas of high-value real estate are emerging in the software stack: graph databases for data harmonization and agent control frameworks higher up the stack. The big chatter in the community now is around who is going to win, Vellante pointed out.

“Is it going to be the application, the ISVs, that have always owned their own little stovepipes? If they win, then we’re going to have [a] more fragmented application stack,” Vellante said. “Or is something going to emerge like graph databases that allow you to traverse applications and harmonize that data across applications?”

That’s the real holy grail for the real next wave of agentic AI, according to Vellante. It’s going to take some time to unfold, but agent washing will be a real trend to keep an eye on. 

“Everybody’s claiming 2025 is the year of agents. I think it’s going to be the year of agent washing,” he said.

Agent washing is a concept similar to greenwashing. Agent washing involves situations in which companies exaggerate or misrepresent their AI products as being fully autonomous “agents,” when in fact they may be much less equipped than that.

Power, cooling and a shifting landscape

Power and cooling is becoming an important subject in the technology world given that it will change how clusters are built. Companies can have power and cooling in one cluster and maybe not in another depending on the power envelope, Furrier noted.

“It’s going to be very interesting,” he said.

Last week, multiple outlets reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. was considering taking control of Intel Corp.’s factories at the request of the team of U.S. President Donald Trump. It’s really important to keep Intel independent, according to Vellante.

“I am more convinced than ever that it’s important to have onshore headquartered U.S. ownership of that foundry,” Vellante said. “If the IP stays in Taiwan or it stays in Korea or somewhere else, that’s not good for the United States. It’s got to be a U.S.-based, headquartered company.”

In other news, Bloomberg reported last week that Dell Technologies Inc. was nearing a $5 billion server deal with Elon Musk’s xAI. This is essentially an AI factory, according to Furrier.

“Huge demand for workloads, AI workloads. Dell, Super Micro, HPE, these are the companies that are going to get the windfall,” Furrier said. “This is the server 2.0 market. So, you’ve got to run software on these things. I am super psyched to see some of these numbers being kicked around.”

Watch the full podcast below to find out why these industry pros were mentioned:

Krista Satterthwaite, SVP and GM, mainstream compute at HPE
Brian J. Baumann, director of Capital Markets at NYSE
Chandra Rangan, CMO of Neo4j
Shlomo Kramer, co-founder and CEO of Cato Networks
Carolyn Crandall, CMO of AirMDR
Janine Gianfredi, CMO of Transcarent
Rachel Thornton, CMO of Adobe Enterprise
Mandy Dhaliwal, CMO of Nutanix
Surbhi Agarwal, CMO of Applied Intuition
Abhay Parasnis, founder and CEO of Typeface
Bruce Cleveland, CEO of Traction Gap Partners
Laura Heisman, CMO of Dynatrace
Akanksha Mehrotra, CVP, AI and enterprise marketing, AMD
Molham Aref, CEO of RelationalAI
Meghan Curtin McKenna, founder and CEO of FIF Collective
Dave Hitz, founder emeritus at NetApp
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS
Donald Trump, 45th and 47th president of the United States of America
Joe Biden, 46th president of the United States of America
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO of Cisco Systems
Charles Fitzgerald, consultative strategist and investor
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms
Juan Loaiza, EVP at Oracle

Here’s the full theCUBE Pod episode: 

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Photo: SiliconANGLE