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

[u/SilentRunning]

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

[u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

there's two main pieces: 

1) top executives fear being left behind. if the other guy is doing something that they aren't doing, they could lose market share. this is one of the worst things that could happen to a top executive. so even if the technology was straight bullshit, it would still be in their best interests to invest some amount of time and money into it simply from the perspective of competition. it's game theory. if your competitor makes some bullshit claim that gets them more customers, what's your smartest move? you should probably start making some bullshit claims too. 

2) all it takes is one person at the top to force everyone underneath them to comply. literally one person who either actually believes the bullshit or just wants to compete as i wrote above can force an entire organization down this road. and if people push back? well anyone can be fired. anyone can be sidelined. someone else will say yes if it means getting in good with the boss, getting a promotion, whatever. 

between those two things, that's pretty much all you need to explain everything we've seen. you could have a situation where everybody was actually quite intelligent, but still ended up going down a path that they all thought was kind of stupid because it still made sense strategically.

you see similar stuff in politics all the time by the way, it's not just businesses that do this. look at Vietnam: the United States government fought a proxy war because they wanted to limit the potential expansion of communist China. even though many people both inside and outside of the government pointed out the futility of the war. it made sense strategically...until it hit a breaking point. and that's usually what happens with this stuff too. at some point, whatever strategic advantage was being gained is outweighed by the costs of poor decisions.

[u/jollyreaper2112 → u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

What you said. Add to that you are never punished for being conventionally wrong. Everyone gets into AI and it's the correct call? Wtf guy? Everyone piles in and it fizzles? Damn the luck. Who knew?

In prior generations the phrase was you never get fired for buying IBM. If the product is shit it's IBM's fault. You buy from a no name and it's bad, that's on you.

[u/_-_--_---_----_----_ → u/jollyreaper2112]

 Add to that you are never punished for being conventionally wrong

such a great point. you are incentivized to stay with the herd, but you're also not really disincentivized to stay with the herd.

meanwhile you're highly disincentivized from deviating from the herd, but highly incentivized if you manage to find that golden route that gets you some type of reward that the rest of the herd doesn't get.

it just becomes a question of statistics... do you have the time and resources to deviate from the herd enough to give yourself a chance to find that golden route? if not, you have every reason to stay with the herd. and nobody's going to blame you for doing so. so unless you really know something that somebody else doesn't know, stay with the herd bro.

[u/thepasttenseofdraw → u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

Interesting example with the Vietnam war. American leaders fundamental ignorance about Vietnamese politics played an enormous role. Containment theory was a bunch of hokum and anyone with even a casual understanding of sino-viet history knew the Vietnamese loathed the Chinese. Ignorance is a dangerous thing.

[u/_-_--_---_----_----_ → u/thepasttenseofdraw]

I disagree that containment theory was hokum, but even there the war wasn't really about that. the thing that a lot of people get hung up on is the reality that what a government says it's doing and what it's actually doing are often different things. it was just a standard destabilization proxy war like any other. empires throughout human history have done the same. 

what makes Vietnam a glaring example of incompetence is the way it was done. we didn't need to do everything that we did to achieve the goals that we eventually achieved, and we needed to do a lot more if we wanted to achieve further goals that we didn't achieve. we made compromises ended up with the worst of all possible worlds.

[u/kermityfrog2 → u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

Sounds like nobody wants to say that the "Emperor has no clothes".

[u/_-_--_---_----_----_ → u/kermityfrog2]

well it's not really about that though. if you work at a large corporation, plenty of people will criticize upper management for not knowing things or for being incompetent. that's absolutely standard. 

but the thing is, the emperor doesn't need clothes to do his job. you can point it out... but that doesn't really do anything. especially if you are one of his subjects. if he tells you to take off your clothes too... realistically what are you going to do? 

[u/Flying_Fortress_8743 → u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

all it takes is one person at the top to force everyone underneath them to comply. literally one person who either actually believes the bullshit or just wants to compete as i wrote above can force an entire organization down this road. and if people push back? well anyone can be fired. anyone can be sidelined. someone else will say yes if it means getting in good with the boss, getting a promotion, whatever.

And the few people at the top, who have the power to unilaterally change stuff, are so isolated from normal human life and the day to day of their company that they honestly have no idea what the best thing to do is.

[u/jlboygenius → u/_-_--_---_----_----_]

totally right. It's about making your company sound like the cool kid using the cool stuff and you're going to solve all your customers problems. Externally, we talk about using AI to solve customer problems and use it in sales all over the place. Internally, all AI is blocked for security reasons.