In some products, certain AI features have become expected. If a product doesn’t include them, it risks losing customers, making it a net negative for the market. At this point, companies either invest in AI or risk falling behind.
95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
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Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#32No shit. AI is not "AI", its just a meme word for getting VC cash, because the original term (ML) did not raise any capital. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#33Why do I have a feeling that most of that $30B was spent on paying for consultants, most of which were also essentially making things up as they went along.
Are there really that many consultants floating around still? I remember the heyday of the 2000s and kind of thought the outside consultants were largely disappearing and nowadays companies have trained themselves to jump on the hype train without paying consultants to push them?
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#34What are the actual use cases that can generate revenue or at least save costs today? I can think of:
1. Generate content to create online influence. This is at this point probably way oversaturated and I think more sophisticated models will not make it better.
2. Replace junior developers with Claude Code or similar. Only sort of works. After all, you can only babysit one of these at a time no matter how senior you are so realistically it will make you, what, 50% more productive?
3. Replace your customer service staff. This may work in the long run but it saves money instead of making money so its impact has a hard ceiling (of spending just the cost of electricity).
4. Assistive tools. Someone to do basic analysis, double check your writing to make it better, generate secondary graphic assets. Can save a bit of money but can’t really make you a ton because you are still the limiting factor.
Aside: I have tried it for editing writing and it works pretty well but only if I have it do minimal actual writing. The more words it adds, the worse the essay. Having it point out awkward phrasing and finding missing parts of a theme is genuinely helpful.
5. AI for characters in video games, robot dogs, etc. Could be a brave new frontier for video games that don’t have such a rigid cause/effect quest based system.
6. AI girlfriends and boyfriends and other NSFW content. Probably a good money maker for a decade or so before authentic human connections swing back as a priority over anxiety over speaking to humans.
What use cases am I missing?
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#35Is hard to measure return when you prompt a question and it comes out with a partial solution.
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you sell overpriced generative AI solutions, or do you consult them on how to pivot away from idiotic generative AI?
Can't tell if you're in on it, but he's implying this waste is no different than average for consulting
I take offence at comparing my consulting services writing real software by hand like we did in 2021 with generative AI spambots.
(I'm not really offended honestly. Startups will come crying to un-vibe the codebases soon enough.)
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#37The report itself can only be viewed by filling out a form - this article is so details light as to be useless.
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#38We are entering the “Trough of disillusionment.” These hype cycles are very predictable. GPT-5 being panned as a disappointment after endless hype may go down as GenAI’s “jump the shark” moment. It’s all fun and games until the bean counters start asking for evidence of return on investment. GenAI folks better buckle up. Bumps ahead. The smart folks are already quietly preparing for a shift to ride the next hype wave…
Yo what’s the next hype cycle that smart folks like us should be working on?
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#39Why do people so desperately want to see AI fail?
Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend
#40The link to their referenced study doesn't seem to work? This is confusing.. it's directly saying AI is improving employee productivity, but that's not leading to more business profit... how does that happen?
> AI is improving employee productivity, but that's not leading to more business profit... how does that happen? One trivial way is that the increase of productivity is less than the added cost of the tools. Which suggests that (either due to their own pricing, or just mis-judgement) the AI companies are mis-pricing their tools. If the tool adds $5000 in productivity, it should be priced at $4999, eventually -- the A…
the AI companies are mis-pricing their tools
Sounds like the AI companies are not so much mispricing, as the companies using the tools are simply paying wayyy too much for the privilege.
As long as the companies keep paying, the AI companies are gonna keep the usage charges as high as possible. (Or at least, at a level as profitable to themselves as possible.) It's unreasonable to expect AI companies to unilaterally lower their prices.