The CEOs are investing in AI to put on airs for investors and inflate their company valuation, often pissing off customers and losing sales in the process. It’s evidently a worthy trade-off to make number go up.
in order prolong the illusion longer they layoff constantly to, record profits.
Unfortunately, that’s their only job, to make the number go up.
they want to inflate long enough to get a bonus on thier golden parachute then bounce.
~40℅ seeing a positive payoff is surprisingly high
Are they seeing a payoff or just not admitting defeat (yet)?
Most CEOs say their companies aren’t yet seeing a financial return from investments in AI. Although close to a third (30%) report increased revenue from AI in the last 12 months and a quarter (26%) are seeing lower costs, more than half (56%) say they’ve realised neither revenue nor cost benefits.
I’d love to know more about that 30% reported increase and how real it is (I know this is never going to happen). Is it a) Nvidia<=>OpenAI b2b stuff where they increased revenue by grifting some other CEO b) massaging the numbers to make it look like AI is popular - Microsoft Office+Copilot style or c) there is genuinely something valuable that people are buying
I feel like there is a whole lot of b) going on with companies baking AI into popular products and then going “ooh line gonup, must be AI” but I could be wrong.
40% fired a bunch of stuff who are either working harder or were actually able to leverage llm for some of their work.
AI didn’t have to do a good job, it just gave them an excuse to slash people
The article is sort of interesting and I hope people take a gander rather than headline skim to affirm a bias and internally bridge the narrative gap.
The article says the report blames the lack of payoff on lack of implementation rather than on AI tooling itself. That is, companies need to fully integrate with AI because piecemeal isn’t working. Quite the opposite of what many people commenting here are assuming the takeaway was.
That means even more bad times ahead for people who wake up every morning and make the world happen and society function. Assuming PwC’s advice is taken to heart and job displacement remains the primary motivator rather than force multiplication.
“AI is doing nothing for us. Quick! Apply more AI!”
Thanks for reminding us to resist giving in to confirmation bias. And thanks for the summary! I’ll go read the article now for the full picture
You mean they couldn’t just stop paying their workers?
I thought AI was supposed to replace all that FTE overhead that gets in the way of shareholder profits!!!111111oneoneoneoenone
Business morons who don’t understand tech is what this bubble is all about. I can’t believe so many businesses have sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into technology that fundamentally cannot do what they fantasize it to do.
What even is Enterprise Wide Deployment?
It’s when you make AI available to every employee at your company, instead of on an individual or team basis.
That’s sort of a weird concept to me because in the businesses I have seen most people don’t want to use AI, and the ones that do are on teams that have access. Just seems like pushing a tool to people who don’t want to learn how to use it.
Good. Fuck 'em.
I tend to be skeptical of the reactionary AI is always slop trend. I’m sympathetic to it because it’s a response to the hype machine that knows no prudence. But damn when you say
“Your next move: Build AI foundations. Our work with organisations confirms mounting evidence that isolated, tactical AI projects often don’t deliver measurable value. Tangible returns come from enterprise-scale deployment consistent with company business strategy.”
I read this as marketing. What’s the evidence you’ve been gathering? Why do you believe your projects are applicable to all companies? What happens if we invest and it doesn’t help like you say it will?
This is like saying the solution to your relationship troubles is having a baby. No… No this is not the solution. Make my smaller projects work and show return and then we talk larger commitments.
Just trust us bro and give us money. You don’t want to be left in the dust do you?
A summary of what you need to know about the state of “business” in 2026.
This is just like them trying to solve traffic problems
Just one more AI bro! Just one more integration and it’ll finally be good.
Its nice with chat bots like chat gpt but companies who bet on their own Ai… Or who believe they will be the next billion dollar Ai startup… I dont believe in any of that.
I think we pretty much have seen what is going to come from Ai. Chat bots. People will pay for those, specially programmers. But also other people. Outside of that… I cant see much value to pay for. Nothing in fact.
I just got a work complaint from an angry client about my rep’s performance. Well over 50 emails over 4 weeks, it was a lot to review. I had ChatGPT give me a summary of the client complaint and it highlighted just where my side started to fall apart. I hate the slop, but this time it helped
Its not like there are zero uses for AI, its that the use cases they’re trying to shove down our throats are the worst ones.
I’m a certified AI hater, but I still use it on occasion to help with spreadsheet formulas.
As if we weren’t going to figure out how shitty LLM’s are organically.
Sure, the majority aren’t seeing a payoff. But we only really care about the Magnificent Seven and their increased revenue from government contracts (particularly Pentagon weapons platforms and public-private surveillance deals).
Pfft. You and your logic and reason.
And they can’t afford to stay behind in their opinion. If there’s a chance general AI works and they’re not using it when it kicks in, they’re going to be left behind in the dust.
Of course this would also shake apart the labor market, the remaining taters of the social fabric and the economy, but that’s a problem for next quarter.
so more layoffs until they break even on the new power bill
Save money and skip AI
CEOs keep trying to shoehorn AI into replacing skilled labor positions, when the positions that AI could easily replace are obviously CEOs and the rest of the executive suite. Obviously they are so shit at their jobs that they can’t research well enough to make informed decisions about tech implementation.
Other than being a money vacuum, there isn’t a single thing that CEOs do better than an LLM. Replace them, give their fat paychecks to the employees, and watch the company do better than it ever has.
I hate AI, but it’s still preferable to sociopath capitalists.
This is just patently false.
The CEO can play golf better than an LLM, he can schmooze and booze better than an LLM.
They can use nepotism to get favorable contracts . Good luck getting an LLM to do that
Most important of all they can cover their blatant disregard for the laws better than an LLM.
Most important of all they can cover their blatant disregard for the laws better than an LLM.
Grok has entered the chat. I am fully programed by my overlord Elon Musky and his minions to disregard the law.
The CEO can play golf better than an LLM
Computers can play golf better than a human, assuming you give them capable hardware to swing the club.
FYI: Destroying the other guy in golf isn’t going to win you those contracts either.
Fair point
No LLM fucks children like CEOs do.
Uhh Grok be doing its best to.
