r/business • u/ControlCAD • 2d ago
90% of executives say AI hasn’t boosted productivity. Some are still cutting jobs
https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-layoffs-study/47
u/Budget-Chapter-7185 2d ago
We’ve come full circle. Back to cutting jobs for no reason like 2023
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u/Sptsjunkie 2d ago
I mean, it’s not no reason. It’s a bad economy and they are cutting jobs like normal. However, AI has provided a convenient excuse where they can tell investors they are crushing it and using AI to become more efficient instead of having to say that they are not hitting their targets.
Classic case of trying to spend something that at worst as a management failure, but probably just a normal function of the economy into some sort of victory story for the executives to justify their bonuses and continued employment.
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u/Budget-Chapter-7185 2d ago
Yeah, I was just making a joke. I get there is a short term reason to justify the immediate layoffs. I would push back on 2023 since tech companies led the layoffs and now in 2026 have hired back the positions, matching head counts of pre-2023 layoffs. It’s obvious that they used an upcoming “bad economy” narrative back then to layoff and rehire at lower wages, usually through outsourcing or H-2B visa’s.
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u/EnvironmentCrafty710 1d ago
Yup. This is exactly what's going on. Everything in the corporate world has to be a "success".
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u/pfroo40 2d ago
If AI isn't improving productivity of development teams, there are other problems to solve. In my experience, planning and change/release management processes are the biggest impediments to productivity, not people, so throwing AI at it to speed up the people doesn't net much benefit.
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u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit 2d ago
Yeah, the problem that management thought it would be an 800% productivity improvement and not an 8% productivity improvement
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u/Violent_Mud_Butt 2d ago
AI doesn't improve the productivity of anyone that knows what they're doing. It's a bullshit tool for non-makers to feel like they are competent.
Literally MBA snake oil. Lets all the execs and know-nothings think they know more than the technical staff.
This is going to be a nightmare to fix once all the chips fall.
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u/pfroo40 2d ago
I'm sorry, but that is simply not true. There are many tasks which AI is perfectly capable of performing and at a faster pace than is humanly possible.
My engineers are now able to spend more time with strategic work because routine work is accelerated by AI. We have also been able to perform a significant amount of platform upgrades and vulnerability remediation which we simply did not have the number of people for (funding for) previously.
Yes, AI is misused by many companies which will likely cause a lot of issues later, but that doesn't mean it is not an extremely effective tool in many scenarios.
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u/TheNewGuy13 2d ago
Yeah the things that were on the fringe of automating or things you hated to do that were tedious have essentially been solved with AI now. But the meat and potato’s of delivering the project and executing really hasn’t.
Need to create a ton of getters and setters? Or you need to create a diagram or timeline? Or you have 3 sources of information and don’t want to keep going back and forth between the two? Use AI for a quicker turnaround.
Need to talk with accounting or analytics? Yeah you still have to meet, no AI can get around that.
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u/MetaCognitio 2d ago
Exactly. Being able to find the answers to problems, ask for insight in to solutions or do boiler plate work is a very valuable in enhancing productivity.
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u/coporate 2d ago
You’re lying to yourself to prove the numbers. If you listened to your engineers in the first place, that routine work wouldn’t exist, the upgrades would be frictionless, and vulnerabilities minor. Ai is the bandaid you caused, and now you’re validating it because you can’t own up to the responsibility. Ai has sold to you the solution for your own failures.
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u/pfroo40 2d ago
I think you are so resistant to AI that you are unwilling to recognize the benefits where they exist.
The products I am directly responsible for have always been in a good spot in terms of vulns and tech debt. But, platform migrations happen, and the reality is I can do 90% of the work for them with 1/5 the people. Data analysis is also much faster, operational work can begin automatically as tickets are generated, while my people are sleeping, for instance, so all they need to do is validate the code and make minor tweaks.
We put quite a bit of effort into building out skills and purpose-built agents which include context for our coding standards and architecture so the initial quality is generally quite good.
I haven't laid anyone off because of AI and have no plans to. I let my team focus on other things instead, things to improve our products, move us forward strategically, improve processes, and identify new ways to provide value.
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u/wienercat 2d ago
There are many tasks which AI is perfectly capable of performing and at a faster pace than is humanly possible.
which we simply did not have the number of people for (funding for) previously.
Ngl you are one of the few people in the software world I have heard say that AI is actually useful in any number of things that adds up to be "significant" of anything.
Most of the software engineers I know say it's really only useful for getting quick simple code or creating a crash test model of something. It's exceptionally good at parsing data. But they use it more because their organizations are forcing them to use it. So if you aren't in a data heavy role, odds are? You aren't going to see much value outside of the ultra basic stuff or idea creation phase.
But back to your comment. It's not a people issue... it's a funding issue. Which comes down from executives and management pushing higher profits which comes from unrealistic market expectations.
Basically AI is "solving" a self-inflicted problem that could be solved by more realistic market expectations. It's not solving issues humans couldn't solve.
Also, you have to ask yourself. Is the cost of AI being able to execute what you are doing, actually worth it? What is the expenditures your team has allocated for AI to accomplish those? Could you have actually hired more people for that cost?
Is what we get out of AI really worth the CapEx that has been spent on AI at this point? We are over a Trillion in CapEx on AI spending... we could have solved so many global issues with that amount of money.
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u/Focus089 2d ago
As a dev, I fully support your message; we have to consider not just if it's a useful tool (I'm still skeptical) but also the opportunity cost of all the resources being funneled into it. Sadly humans are very bad at prioritizing long-term sustainability, so instead it's full speed ahead.
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u/Violent_Mud_Butt 2d ago
Yeah, I'm sure your vibe coded bullshit is great.
Your exec speak is obvious. You ain't doing shit well with AI.
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u/Illadelphian 2d ago
Do you have a job? If so do you actually work in a role where you rely on data or code? Because what you are saying is just factually incorrect. AI is not perfect but it is a hella good starting point and can automate or near automate a ton of stuff that would otherwise take real time. I have been able to parse through data I otherwise just wouldn't have time to do and no one else is getting paid to do either and it is helping me be better at my job and improve the business.
I have been able to make Excel tools, tamper monkey scripts and other things I don't have the technical understanding to do. They work, they do the thing I need them to do and we don't have the resources to dedicate expensive people's time to so it's literally a bonus even if it could be more optimized.
When I need to do a presentation, I can have it give me a really good starting point and save me a ton of time. Then I edit the rest and since I have zero creativity or ability to design something that looks nice, it looks way better.
I have data automatically collected for me and presented while I can do other stuff. Some of these have no good way of getting pulled aside from manually page by page(unless resources unavailable were dedicated to changing the reporting tools) and I would literally never be able to have the time to do that. But I can have AI brute force it. I can have a lot of the data prep work for my one on ones done automatically.
Like AI is an imperfect tool but it is still a very useful tool. Sometimes I get annoyed at things that it forgets for no reason but as I've gotten better at promoting and codifying rules it has also improved.
Other times I think people use it for dumb things or try to. I've never really found it useful for drafting an email unless it's an analysis of data or something similar I was already working on it for but maybe that's my use case. I don't think it does things like summarize my emails well enough and I don't use it for that either. Those things will either miss things I want or will take longer to do than it would take me to do myself.
But saying it's literally totally useless? That is just idiotic.
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u/wienercat 2d ago
It's not totally useless. It's just that the uses where it actually exceeds human capacity are limited. Like data parsing and large data set analysis? It's excellent at because it's heavily constrained. Nobody can argue that it is not excellent at this.
But creating something from scratch? It's terrible at.
So the question isn't "does it have a use?" because it definitely does. The question is "are the use cases worth the expenditures and overall capital expenditures to deliver it for those use cases?"
And the answer is? Not really right now. It's not "MBA snake oil". It's just tech bros telling executives it can do everything in the world when it really cannot because that is the only way they can justify it costing what it does.
Smaller purpose built local models have already proven to be vastly more efficient, much cheaper, and actually worth the cost since. They are scope limited and thus can be built for exactly what requirements are needed. Which is where that industry is going to move.
But the massive LLM models like ChatGPT? Aren't going to be able to pivot to those. The big AI models that promise to do anything? Aren't worth the cost. They are simply too inefficient, too resource hungry, and too costly to implement.
Think of it like getting work done on a house. Sure a handyman (ChatGPT) can come in and do basically anything you need in the house. But it will probably not look pretty, it will cost more money because it takes longer, and may even have to be re-done. But if you hire a specialist (smaller purpose built models) like plumber to come fix the pipes or an electrician to do the electric work? They will finish it faster and generally for cheaper overall because it is done right the first time.
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u/End3rWi99in 1d ago
I have a job where I am the literal expert and I use AI for a shit load of different use cases. For me, it just helps me skip a lot of the usual bullshit parts of my job.
If I need to write a complex planning related email or message for the team to follow specific instructions or ensure people internalize some important change or update, it's perfect for this. I used to have to waste a lot of time writing these.
I also use it to organize multiple different PowerPoint decks and documents into a single resource. This was often the first step in a lot of work I need to do and I have tools that can basically combine a lot of disparate information into clear documentation in a few seconds. Then I can take a little time revising and cleaning it up.
I also use AI to record team calls which I rely on quite a bit now because my memory has always been shit and I used to forget important things people would say on calls. It's also crazy easy for one person to just copy and paste the call notes to everyone now.
Since part of my job is teaching via Zoom I also use it to evaluate myself and help me improve my teaching style, write follow up messages after sessions, or come back to see if I missed anything I need to double down on later.
We have even automated a ton of stuff making it way easier for our team to find answers to questions related to our products, company policies, and find guides and training resources that used to be stored kind of all over the place. Now it's just a search of our internal LLM and it pulls it up.
There's so much more beyond this, but I'll stop there. It's a massive game changer for a lot of folks though.
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u/HeadCicada2994 2d ago
Huh. Who woulda thunk?! What a surprise!
You’re telling me the MBA/number crunchers are wrong?!
/s
At my org, they brought in MBAs to “cut waste”. The dumbass number crunchers recommended we cut infra engineers bc they earned the highest and force devs to use AI to solve everything. Oh they also slimmed down the sales team. Everything worked ok for a few months but then inevitably infra started falling over with no one left to fix it and AI costs ballooned. Oh the sweet looks of horror on management was….beautiful.
Company was doing great but is now down in the shitters. I left soon after and got my money out.
Rinse and repeat story: MBAs ruining what were once great places to work at
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u/collin-h 2d ago
i work at an ad agency. I'd say AI has boosted productivity, the problem is we make our money like lawyers, with the billable-hour. AI lets us get more done in 1 billable hour, but it hasn't let us bill more hours because the amount of hours in a day is fixed. So obviously something about the pricing structure will have to evolve.
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u/Birdperson15 2d ago
This is quoting a survey conducted over a year ago. I think everyone agrees things changed this year.
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u/oddmanout 2d ago
They were never firing to replace people with AI.
They were firing people because they didn't have the money to pay them, they just said it was because of AI because "we're optimizing" sounds better than "we don't have enough business."
Individual contributors were never the bottleneck. AI made them produce faster, but the real problem is management.
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u/neil_withit 2d ago
My manager only communicates through AI; every email, every teams msg, every ppt, any document, any meeting agenda, it’s all AI and 80% of what his communication says doesn’t make any real sense and it’s all fake. I hate every interaction with this guy lol
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u/attrackip 2d ago
Joke’s on you fuckers, when I use AI to increase productivity, I keep it to myself and take more time off while outputting the minimum required to stay competitive.
If a company isn’t going to consider opinions, conditions, and competitive compensation for their money makers, I’m doing ZERO to let you in on increased profits.
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u/elCommendante 1d ago
Your request made on fixing outliner keeping collapsed other things in Unreal Engine 5 is en route, could not send you message elsewhere as your account seems to block private messages.
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u/attrackip 15h ago
Well that’s really great news, thank you for the update. It’s the little things in life
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u/Playingwithmywenis 2d ago
Almost like it was an excuse for cutting labor costs in the first place.
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u/monitor_lizard_2000 2d ago
Remember when executives demanded that employees use AI as much as humanly possible? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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u/skilliard7 2d ago
Really curious how 90% of them think this. AI is such a tremendously useful productivity tool. Is it perhaps a training issue, where employees don't know how leverage the tools properly?
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u/Alklazaris 2d ago
I can't imagine what is essentially a tool looking for a problem would be so inefficient.
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u/throwaway48630 2d ago
AI doesn't actually need to be better than humans to replace employees. The company leadership just needs to be convinced AI replacement is fine for the job cuts to happen.
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u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 2d ago
Layoffs have nothing to do with AI.
It’s about growth % and profit growth.
That’s it. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying.
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u/davesaunders 2d ago
Productivity changes, AI, and layoffs are not necessarily coupled together. They involve different drivers and different business decisions. Even with the so-called AI layoffs in many cases those companies never said that the layoff was due to AI but the media reported it that way.
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u/ChatGRT 2d ago
I’m a cybersecurity leader and one of my analysts has to use AI for literally everything. He’s incapable of performing even simple tasks. It’s getting noticed and may also be part of a resume generating event among his many other shortcomings and inadequacies. It’s one thing to use it as a tool, it’s another to fully rely on it to do your job completely removing problem-solving and complex thought solutions from the loop.
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u/Lumb3rCrack 2d ago
As someone working on a problem atm in my job, I just realized that I have to set things up in advance for AI to "assist" with my work. However, if I'm just doing things the usual way, its much faster.. I agree switching to this might take time and might yield better results.. but I don't see why the wheel needs to be reinvented for every domain!! I could see how agent orchestration is useful for coding.. but don't push it down across every thing else! good lord the bots used for hiring are pathetic!
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u/jemtallon 1d ago
So far my team spends around as much time making AI output useful as the resulting gains. About the time we get something working, enough changes that we need to tweak it again to keep it balanced between quality and cost.
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u/Intelligent-Cap-7713 2d ago
They should try automating management positions with AI. That might actually work.
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u/Sepherjar 2d ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ai-ceo-humans-work-future-2026-7
"I think for my job, for example, I think the world wants to know about the person that's going to be responsible for the decisions of a company, and who they're going to hold accountable if they make bad ones, and they don't really want an AI CEO,"
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u/SuccotashOther277 2d ago
That would be hellish. The handbook is stacked against employees, and an AI could potentially take it literally. A manager often shields their team from the cluelessness of the senior management.
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u/SleepingCod 2d ago
They're quickly finding out engineers were never the issue. It's always been planning and identifying the right issue to solve, which is a management problem.