Opinion: The same technology meant to boost productivity is creating a new form of inefficiency; polished nonsense that takes time to read, process and ultimately ignore.
Opinion by Dr Dulani Jayasuriya (finance and accounting) and Professor Alex Sims (commercial law), University of Auckland Business School.
A recent MIT study highlights an awkward truth about corporate AI, suggesting 95 percent of generative AI pilots deliver zero return on investment.
While many executives are celebrating their "digital transformation" and investing billions of dollars into implementing AI solutions, some employees are using $20 ChatGPT subscriptions that work better than million-dollar enterprise systems, according to the MIT report.
Despite companies investing a staggering USD$30-40b in enterprise AI systems, 95 percent are getting absolutely nothing back. Not small returns. Not disappointing results. Zero.
This isn't just another tech bubble story. It's a wake-up call that shows something profound about how modern businesses work, and why they're failing at their biggest technology bet in decades.
A real story from the MIT study captures the problem: A corporate lawyer at a mid-sized firm watched her company spend $50,000 on specialised contract analysis software. The sales pitch was impressive. The demos looked great. The IT department was thrilled. But the lawyer tried it once and never touched it again.
Instead, she uses her personal $20 monthly ChatGPT subscription, because in her words, it "actually works". The expensive AI tool provided "rigid summaries with limited customisation", while ChatGPT let her refine and iterate until providing exactly what she needed.
This isn't an isolated incident. The MIT researchers found that 90 percent of employees are using personal AI tools for work; ChatGPT, Claude, and various consumer apps, often violating company policy and raising confidentiality and privacy issues.
Why banks score an F in the AI revolution
Financial services should be leading the AI revolution. After all, banks essentially run on data, algorithms, and automated decisions. They invented complex derivatives, high-frequency trading, and can calculate the risk of obscure events years into the future. Yet, MIT's AI Market Disruption Index gives financial services a low score of just 0.5 out of 5, barely registering any transformation at all.
Your favourite news website has probably changed more from AI than your bank.
There's another phenomenon costing companies millions that nobody wants to discuss: "workslop", the avalanche of mediocre, AI-generated content now flooding corporate communications.
Many meetings now start with AI-generated summaries of AI-generated reports based on AI-generated research. Teams wade through perfectly formatted documents that look and sound impressive but say nothing. It's like everyone hired the same mediocre ghostwriter who doesn't understand the business.
The irony is painful. The same technology meant to boost productivity is creating a new form of inefficiency; polished nonsense that takes time to read, process and ultimately ignore.
