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CEOs to Keep Spending on AI, Despite Spotty Returns

73 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7

by ruralfam

1 subcomments

M$FT increased 365 student monthly charges from $7 to nearly $20 per month automatically to cover CoPilot for 2026. Evidently did not inform the college about this. Just sent yearly charges for nearly $200 to gob-smacked parents. We canceled the next day. WTF M$FT.
They say you will get refunded in you cancel within 30 days of the yearly charge. We did so, but I am wondering if M$FT simply and reliably does the refund. Or will I need to spend hours on the phone talking to a M$FT AI Customer Rep trying to get what is promised. Sincerely... I would appreciate others experience. I could do a charge-back in the next few days if the "promised, easy route" is not available. TIA, RF

by bArray

3 subcomments

> After a year in which trillions of dollars worth of AI investments buoyed global markets and the economy, 68% of CEOs plan to spend even more on AI in 2026
They are too far in to turn back. They got into AI via fear of missing out (FOMO) and now they are too heavily invested to write it off on their balance sheet. To revert now would cause nothing but trouble.
> Less than half of current AI projects had generated more in returns than they had cost, respondents said. They reported the most success using AI in marketing and customer service and challenges using it in higher-risk areas such as security, legal and human resources.
I.e., the best success has been in cutting jobs, not in aiding the productivity of individuals.

by steve1977

2 subcomments

by paulglx

0 subcomment

by victor106

0 subcomment

by mghackerlady

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by ChrisArchitect

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by bob1029

1 subcomments

I believe we will see breakthrough success in the B2B/SaaS market sometime in 2026. I am getting an uneasy feeling regarding the notion of a bubble. By most accounts it should have popped by now. I am still using the LLM tech on a daily basis. It definitely adds value. Concerns like whether or not a human needs to be in the loop seem practically irrelevant at this point. Applying this value through productized channels is only a matter of time.
That said, the B2C AI market is a joke compared to the B2B market. Consumer AI use is an undeterminable black hole of money. All the bubble talk does make sense in context of normal-ass people using ChatGPT on their phones all day. Advertising is the only possible application for this market and it's already incredibly saturated.

0 subcomment

by spwa4

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by subtlestorm

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by Der_Einzige

4 subcomments

The “AI is in a bubble crowd” still has no answer to “why didn’t the tech bubble pop in 2022?”
Snowflake bought streanlit (a bad python UI/UX) for 800 million in 2022. I still have not seen a single deal even close to that bad post 2023, and especially post interest rate hikes.
https://datafortune.com/snowflake-acquires-streamlit-for-usd...
Actually investing in AI is smart and will deliver unfathomable ROI. AI bears deserve to reap what they (don’t) sow.