Dec 3 (Reuters) - Reuters is hosting the two-day Reuters Next conference in New York on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing together more than 700 international business leaders and policymakers to examine the biggest issues facing society, business and the world.

Following are some notable quotes from speakers in the finance and markets sessions of the conference.

MICHAL KATZ, MIZUHO AMERICAS HEAD OF INVESTMENT AND CORPORATE BANKING

"AI is still in the early innings of its evolution, and obviously valuations have been stretched just given the dollars going into capex and companies wanting a stake in the game. We have seen risks arise over potential overbuild, concentration among certain off-takers, and questions about whether returns will materialize. But it’s early days—the story of AI is still being written. Winners have yet to be defined"

UMESH SUBRAMANIAN, CITADEL CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

"We try to make sure that AI doesn't go into the land of prediction. It goes into the land of seeing today clearly."

BRENDAN COUGHLIN, PRESIDENT OF CITIZENS FINANCIAL GROUP

"The industry is ripe for further consolidation and a lot of this tech discussion we've had is going to favor folks with more scale. There's been some M&A in 2025. There's a lot of discussion around that heating up. I think you know (by) December 31, 2026, there will be less deals than people imagine."

View the live broadcast of the World Stage here and read full coverage here.

(Compiled by Pritam Biswas and Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

((Pritam.Biswas@thomsonreuters.com;))