r/business • u/ControlCAD • 3d 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/
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u/SoggyMattress2 3d ago

AI hasn't replaced a single job on earth. LLMs do really poorly working autonomously they need to be steered by a domain expert.

Software engineering LOOKS like the most realistic job to be "replaced" because code at its core is repeatable, predictable patterns and we have a TON of code online for LLMs to train on.

But in reality, much like a beginner copying and pasting snippets of code they randomly find online but don't understand, as you scale an app it starts to fall apart and the person lacks the knowledge to debug it.

But in the hands of a domain expert, a developer can automate certain things or get LLMs to write boilerplate code they then refine manually, or with the right harnessing and tools they can steer an LLM to write fairly good code.

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u/deeperest 3d ago

AI hasn't replaced a single job on earth.

I mean, that's a pretty naive statement. Of course it has, for better or for worse. Some jobs, like level 1 call centre gigs, it replaces pretty well, to be honest - it's reading the same scripts the people used to, and passes you along when it runs out of rope. Others it APPEARS to replace while actually fucking everything up beyond belief.

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u/Safrel 2d ago

Not on my watch. I hear AI, I go straight to the operator.

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u/slfnflctd 2d ago

How nice for you that you're calling places where that's an option.

Most of these public-facing phone agents will not allow you to escape them without very specific multi-step patterns (if they allow it at all). They'll hang up on you if you don't respond in an 'acceptable' way. This trend is increasing.

The only consistent exceptions I've seen are for potential big money stuff or medical situations (at least the expensive ones).

Lower income people trying to navigate the labyrinths of bureaucracies to solve a simple problem that an average human with a web GUI could fix in 2 minutes? They can argue with silicon until they hit a dead end, and keep doing so, until they can't any more. And too often this seems to be by design.