Thomas M. Siebel founded C3.ai in 2009, drawing on his earlier experience founding and leading Siebel Systems, one of the defining enterprise CRM software companies of the previous era. After a period with other executives leading day-to-day operations, Siebel resumed the CEO title directly in May 2026 amid pressure to sharpen the company's path to profitability.
Siebel has long argued that packaged, industry-specific AI applications - rather than general-purpose platforms enterprises must build on themselves - represent the more defensible long-term business model for enterprise AI vendors, a thesis C3.ai's product strategy has consistently reflected.