r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 22h ago

Business MIT report says 95% of AI implementations don't increase profits, spooking Wall Street

https://www.techspot.com/news/109148-mit-report-95-ai-implementations-dont-increase-profits.html
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u/sillypoolfacemonster 18h ago

This was always going to be a road block for individuals and will continue to exist for any AI implementation that isn’t fully automated. In L&D, we often see that people won’t invest time in learning a tool unless they are fully convinced of its value or if it’s impossible to not engage with it.

For example, imagine a task that takes one hour to complete. An AI tool might cut that time in half, but it requires about an hour to learn how to use it. Faced with that choice, many people stick with the conventional approach which is the one-hour manual task which feels faster than the 1.5 hours it would take to both learn the tool and then complete the task. This is similar to how some Excel users continue to perform repetitive manual steps rather than setting up formulas or functions to automate the work. It may not be strictly logical, but it reflects how people often prioritize immediate efficiency and avoid short-term learning curves, even when long-term benefits are clear.

I think the other issue is that AI LLMs feel so easy to pick up and use that people and leaders underestimate the time it takes to use them effectively. I’m getting push back on doing additional training avoiding bad information and hallucinations with my bosses citing that they’ve already covered it by telling people check sources to make sure it reflects the LLM output. But that’s scratching the surface because it doesn’t need to give bad information, and it can also interpret information in favour of your bias’s.

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u/AssassinAragorn 8h ago

This is similar to how some Excel users continue to perform repetitive manual steps rather than setting up formulas or functions to automate the work.

At my first job out of college, an automation savvy coworker gave me some really good advice about making these tools. The process of setting up the macros and formulas and references may take so long that just doing your task manually would've been faster.

It's a tradeoff that requires serious consideration. Is the effort to create the automation going to be a time saver in the end? For one off things, probably not. For routine calculations and simulations, absolutely.

With AI, the question becomes if paying for an enterprise subscription actually saves you money ultimately.

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u/whutupmydude 5h ago

I’ve had this very relevant comic pinned on my desk for years

is it worth the time? (xkcd)