So, for some context, I work at an accounting company that provides tech services to banks. Really tiring shit but it was the only thing where they didn’t ask you for 100 years of previous experience to enter an entry-level position.
A couple of days ago the CEO came for an annual visit and gave a conference, which was 2 hours of generic corporate crap in the world’s most uncomfortable chairs (the only one that probably benefited from that meeting was the local chiropractor). I’m pretty sure the word “growth” was said at least 20 times, and I’m starting to genuinely hate that word.
The interesting bit is that, at the end, the guy answered some questions that were send beforehand by the employees’ and other bosses. One of them was if he saw the benefits of using AI.
He fucking admitted he did not see those benefits, but then said immediately afterwards that the company had to use it because the competitors were using it.
Thankfully the project I work at is such a mess that they don’t have the time to add AI to the workflow.
Look, I have my share of frustrating experiences with AI every day because we’re being pushed to use it at work and for most tasks it’s… umderwelming.
But people do use it. Be it for doing stupid memes, planning their days, life coaching or searching the web. And as a company you want to be where your customers are. AI companies are basically just trying to push usage, now, by spending huge amounts of cash. That’s why they do big talks about AGI but they are all creating freaking AI browsers.
Once AI becomes the de-facto standard way people consume information, your company wants to be visible by AI, their products to be recommended by AI and purchasable from AI. Some companies might actually benefit from it, most will not (like it happened when everyone had to have an ecommerce site and shitty mobile app) but that’s what I see happening.