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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

#51

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.

Can you name some of those products?

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#52

What 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…

Stock images. I’ve already seen trining courses (for compliance reasons) using AI videos. A bit cringey, but I imagine cheaper than shooting real people.

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#53
I am not surprised at all. The capabilities of AI have been vastly oversold. The only winners here are the billionaires that have had early equity/investment in genAI.

They got a majority of the country hooked into AI without truly understanding its current limitations. This is just like digital currency bubble/fad that popped a couple of years ago.

What most companies got out of it is a glorified chatbot (ie, something that was possible in 2014…) at 1000X the cost.

What a sad joke. Innovation in this country is based on a lie, fueled by FOMO.

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#54
post #16

We 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…

[dead]

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#55
post #16

We 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…

I wouldn’t be surprised if 95% of companies knew this was a money pit but felt obligated to burn a pile of money on it so as not to hurt the stock price.

I also wouldn't be surprised if bean counters were expecting a return in an unreasonable amount of time.

"Hey, guys, listen, I know that this just completely torched decades of best practices in your field, but if you can't show me progress in a fiscal year, I have to turn it down." - some MBA somewhere, probably, trying and failing yet again to rub his two brain cells together for the first time since high school.

Just agentic coding is a huge change. Like a years-to-grasp change, and the very nature of the changes that need to be made keep changing.

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#56
Full disclosure: I'm currently in a leadership role on an AI engineering team, so it's in my best interest for AI to be perceived as driving value.

Here's a relatively straightforward application of AI that is set to save my company millions of dollars annually.

We operate large call centers, and agents were previously spending 3-5 minutes after each call writing manual summaries of the calls.

We recently switched to using AI to transcribe and write these summaries. Not only are the summaries better than those produced by our human agents, they also free up the human agents to do higher-value work.

It's not sexy. It's not going to replace anyone's job. But it's a huge, measurable efficiency gain.

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#57

What 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…

+50% productivity for 200$/mo is outstanding value! Most countries have 0-2% productivity growth per year!

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#58
post #16

We 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?

[deleted]

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#59

This is how America ends up being ahead of the rest of world with every new technology breakthrough. They spend a lot of money, lose a lot of money, take risks, and then end up being too far for others to catch up. Trying to claim victory against AI/US Companies this early is a dangerous move.

[flagged]

Re: 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

#60
post #16

We 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?

The US mix of government and enterprise. You want Capital you need to be MAGA

"Donald Trump and Silicon Valley's Billionaire Elegy" - https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-and-silicon-valleys...

"Secret White House spreadsheet ranks US companies based on loyalty to Trump" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/15/secret-white...

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