Instead of looking for other avenues for growth, though, PwC found that executives are worried about falling behind by not leaning into AI enough.
These are the people in charge of the economy.
"Falling behind" is such a bullshit phrase.
It's the "sunk cost fallacy". They've already invested so much, that turning back now means a total loss...when success "might be" just around the corner, if they only invest a little more. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Not just sunk cost, they see all this apparent press, writers, business leaders saying they have fantastic results, so obviously they most be doing something wrong.
I have seen it over and over again in tech. People are told that everyone else in the world is doing great with some tech and everyone is so afraid they are "not getting" something they won't say anything or else they will pretend they also "get it" and it is awesome.
Not even things that have marketing spend behind it, some programming paradigm or whatever. Marketing spend makes it worse, but all by ourselves everyone seems to be afraid to somehow be seen as a clueless Luddite at any second.
It's really weird when you attend some talk where the guy talks up sonething or another and then in more casual private conversation basically admits straight up that he actually doesn't see the benefit, but feels like he has to dance the dance.
The mentality of the gambler. There's a lot of people out there who have this addiction and just aren't fortunate enough to have lucked into becoming a CEO. That's how you know it's a lottery, and being born into riches is a shortcut.
A common phrase of mine is, "the truth is, there is no bus driver at the wheel".
Rich people: Debunking the idea that the rich are the smartest since about 10,000 BCE.
What they lack in smarts, they can make up for in selfishness.
Don't forget psychopathy
And a granny state to bail them out if they lose all their money at the casino.
Tech CEOs are a cancer on society and the planet. Ruining everything just to make fake numbers go higher.
~~Tech~~ CEOs are a cancer on society and the planet. Ruining everything just to make fake numbers go higher.
I'm starting to think that most "business" leaders have the skills of a Trump. It's all puffery.
Have you ever talked to a CEO? Like, sit down and talk face to face? Their are dumb as rocks. They are dumb as rocks and make all the money, and just move around from company to company, running them into the ground.
Yes. Yes I have. And I agree with you. The "starting to think" is an old Norm McDonald trope.
I work in IT, and the accuracy of "The IT Crowd" when it comes to management is scary. How they get anything done is beyond me.
During americas “great” years a lot of the research and development was guided by long term USA policy. We are no longer guided by any sense of what’s to come. It’s a greedy grab all free-for-all. No rules no restrictions, just have fun and make lots of money.
Those who advocate for AI the most are the ones who understand it the least.
CEOs aren't in the positions they hold because they're qualified to lead corporations. They're there solely to figure out the best way to exploit workers legally, and illegally without getting caught. Replacing the workforce with LLMs is all they care about. Makes that job a million times easier, even if it isn't working.
An anecdote in agreement:
The CEO of my company left in September 2025. For years leading up to that, there were 3-4 layoffs/riffs of approx. 5% reductions (edit: yearly reductions). Never hired more US employees except for VP and C-level until we became very top-heavy. What jobs they do replace are primarily India and some in Argentina, many are contractors. They "cook the books" by avoiding taxes and "creatively" avoiding reporting gains/losses due to having a large amount of contractors. 2025 ended up losing a ton of customers due to churn (i.e. leaving or not renewing contracts). Most of our customera are US or North America-based and the contractor teams have such high turnover that customers are sick of us not supporting them well anymore.
Know where that former CEO is now? An AI startup.
Majority of CEOs tried to use Ai on the wrong level of their company: at the bottom.
The next big thing is NI: natural intelligence! Replace you hallucinating AI with a person that can solve problems without hallucinating (usually)!
Ah man I can’t wait for the advertising to pick up on this.
“Has AI crapped the bed again? Here at “local store” we have genuine authentic humans to interact with”
How could they have possibly thought AI would make them money? Lmfao. It sucks power and water just to give wrong answers or generate "art" with terrible attention to detail...
It's because they have no idea what "AI" actually is. They think you tell it to make profits, and it just does so. Anyone who has used any kind of "AI" for an hour knows that it's mostly just shit at everything except the absolutely most basic shit.
Majority of CEOs discover they are completely incompetent frauds to the point of literally deserving the death sentence
There, fixed the headline.
Majority of CEOs discover something plebs like you and I knew all along the whole time.
Oh geez no one could have known that.
Absolutely no one. At all.
Instead of looking for other avenues for growth, though, PwC found that executives are worried about falling behind by not leaning into AI enough.
“A small group of companies are already turning AI into measurable financial returns, whilst many others are still struggling to move beyond pilots,” said PwC global chairman Mohamed Kande in a statement. “That gap is starting to show up in confidence and competitiveness, and it will widen quickly for those that don’t act.”
PwC also pointed out that most companies were lacking the “AI foundations, such as clearly defined road maps and sufficient levels of investment” to realize a return.
And I imagine the only reason I'm drowning is that I didn't bring enough gallons of their energy drink into the sea with me. Wow.
And watch them get crazy bonuses anyways and suffer no consequences.
They will blame workers for not figuring out how to extract the value that all their bank accounts demand is there.
Yeah, No Shit Sherlock, everyone already told you that 3 years ago.
And here is the umpteenth reason to think that C-suites run only on nepotism and empty promises: they're filled with people who are actively bad at their jobs. But while the rest of us gain skills and hone them to try and make a handful of extra peanuts, the guys in the corner offices get handed jobs by family members or friends, simply because it is their destiny to have it.
And thus they never have to be good at it, and any competition for it is artificial, and you end up with people holding the reins of entire companies who have literally no idea the consequences of their decisions or the impact of their policies.
AI has never delivered a return -- at all -- and most of these people probably cannot even define how it works or what benefit it is meant to bring, outside of "replace people with machine, bring more $$$, why use more people when less people do trick?".
Please let this be the beginning of the bubble burst
Sounds good. Then, they'll finally move away from AI and we will all stop having AI being shoved down our throats. I'm sick and tired of all these AI chatbots in places where we don't even need them.
Majority of people that aren't out of touch with reality are completely unsurprised.
Who'd have thought that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters was not the best way to accomplish Hamlet?
My company is forcing that everybody use AI by having weekly reviews. They expect throughput of 2-4x hahahahaha
Great and very welcome news. If enough companies stop using "AI" maybe it will go away.
seems like they ran out of using AI as an excuse to lay people off and "record profits"
It never ceases to amaze how entirely disconnected these folks are.
The hope still holds that this AI bubble will pop before anything truly terrible can come of it, then it can go back to serving the niches its actually helpful for, rather than being used to screw with everyday working people, and we can all live happily ever after.
That's a funny way to say "unsustainable losses"
The only thing I have used AI for is making furry porn. And even then I am really bored with it.
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.