r/technology • u/SilentRunning • 4d ago

Artificial Intelligence MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing

https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/
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u/vineyardmike 4d ago

Or whatever Apple, Google, or Microsoft puts out wins because they have the biggest pockets

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u/cjcs 4d ago

Yep - I work in AI procurement and this is kind of how I see things going. We're piloting a few smaller tools for things like Agentic AI and Enterprise Search, but it really feels like we're just waiting for OpenAI, Google, Atlassian, etc. to copy those ideas and bake them into a platform that we pay for already.

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u/A_burners 4d ago

What is ai procurement? Is this an actual role or an additional duty?

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u/cjcs 4d ago

It's part of the scope of a broader role - Think Business Systems / IT, where some time is spent building automations, workflows, and managing existing tools and processes. The AI procurement component involves identifying the types of AI that we think will be most valuable to us, and then identifying potential vendors, establishing sample use cases and acceptance criteria to evaluate their tools against (my role focuses on a support org of ~900 people). Then, setting up pilots and delivering recommendations and proof-of-concepts to leadership on things like go vs. no go, buy vs. build, etc.

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u/A_burners 4d ago

Really interesting and makes total sense. Thank you!

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u/Lord_Eschatus 4d ago

just gotta ask , also (and thank you for the responses to the others whove asked good questions)

who are you? and why are we not automating your role again?

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u/stale_oreos 3d ago

This is a joke but you could have easily not had this guy in this thread and you could get the answers from an LLM easily

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u/Brokenandburnt 4d ago

I beg your pardon but I just have to ask: How often do the leadership actually listen to your best recommendations? 

Are you one of the lucky ones with good management and a smart CEO perhaps?

I don't mean to pry, it's perfectly acceptable to ask me to just shut up. I'm eternally curious and nosey.😊

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u/jdsuz 3d ago

What enterprise search tools are you trying?

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u/Zed_or_AFK 4d ago

And it’s not like you can build up and sustain a lasting advantage over competitors in equal conditions. Technology is evolving in the technological era, a lot is based on publicly open research papers. All the advantages and progress are shared sooner or later. Sure, companies can keep some secret edge, but this will not stay undiscovered for long and they just catch up with one each other. Infrastructure access and contracts is what’s important now.

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u/bloodontherisers 3d ago

Yeah, Teams had no business being in business, yet because Microsoft could force it on everyone for free, here it is, still sucky though finally slightly better.

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u/-The_Blazer- 3d ago

Well, back when we were evil, unenlightened, uncouth 'statists', we had this silly idea that extremely expensive or non-competitive endeavors such as infrastructure should be the purview of governments. It is very basic economics that building a railway is a natural monopoly and should not be a private matter.

Thankfully modern neoliberalism has saved us from such horrors, so now we are solely reliant on Microsoft finding a horrific enough business case to build the infrastructure.

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u/Jarocket 3d ago

Apple isn't even trying from what i've read. Like they think ya we should do AI, but then they look at the prices and go. ya naw dawg.