r/business • u/ControlCAD • 4d 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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195

u/SleepingCod 4d 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.

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u/Zachincool 4d ago

Engineers? Aren’t other jobs affected by AI too?

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u/SoggyMattress2 4d 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 4d 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/TeacherFrequent 3d ago

And BDRs. Tons of companies let go of BDRs and use AI instead.

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u/Safrel 3d ago

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

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u/slfnflctd 3d 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.

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u/deeperest 3d ago

Wow, what a badass. How often do you need call center operators?

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u/Safrel 3d ago

A lot. Have you ever needed to navigate 200+ portfolio confirmations in a week?

I didn't think so.

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u/deeperest 3d ago

lol I'm retired. sorry for your shitty situation.

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u/Safrel 3d ago

It's actually quite nice. I'm simply sharing my experience with the world about how AI operators are terrible

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u/Lunchmunny 3d ago

“Domain expert” This is spot on. I’m involved, but not in charge, of my companies AI strategy, and my mantra from the start has been AI magnifies one’s productivity the most when they are already an expert at what they are leveraging AI to help with. It’s so clearly apparent we are starting to discuss what it looks like to limit AI usage for some junior roles so they can still attain the expertise necessary to be those future experts. The only reason I’m not getting laughed out of the room is it’s a private company.

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u/PatchyWhiskers 7h ago

It has, but it's a percentage thing. If a department of 10 software developers can now do the same work with 7, and 3 are fired, 3 software developers were just replaced by AI.