Humans May Be Important. Who Knew?
July 9, 2025
Here is an AI reality check. Futurism reports, “Companies that Replaced Humans with AI Are Realizing their Mistake.” You don’t say. Writer Joe Wilkins tells us:
“As of April, even the best AI agent could only finish 24 percent of the jobs assigned to it. Still, that didn’t stop business executives from swarming to the software like flies to roadside carrion, gutting entire departments worth of human workers to make way for their AI replacements. But as AI agents have yet to even pay for themselves — spilling their employer’s embarrassing secrets all the while — more and more executives are waking up to the sloppy reality of AI hype. A recent survey by the business analysis and consulting firm Gartner, for instance, found that out of 163 business executives, a full half said their plans to ‘significantly reduce their customer service workforce’ would be abandoned by 2027. This is forcing corporate PR spinsters to rewrite speeches about AI ‘transcending automation,’ instead leaning on phrases like ‘hybrid approach’ and ‘transitional challenges’ to describe the fact that they still need humans to run a workplace.”
Few workers would be surprised to learn AI is a disappointment. The write-up points to a report from GoTo and Workplace Intelligence that found 62% of employees say AI is significantly overhyped. Meanwhile, 45 percent of IT managers surveyed paint AI rollouts as scattered and hasty. Security concerns and integration challenges were the main barriers, 56% of them reported.
Anyone who has watched firm after firm make a U-turn on AI-related layoffs will not be surprised by these findings. For example, after cutting staff by 22% last year, finance startup Klarna announced a recruitment drive in May. Wilkins quotes tech critic Ed Zitron, who wrote in September:
“These ‘agents’ are branded to sound like intelligent lifeforms that can make intelligent decisions, but are really just trumped-up automations that require enterprise customers to invest time programming them.”
Companies wanted a silver bullet. Now they appear to be firing blanks.
Cynthia Murrell, July 9, 2025
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