"Applied AI Doesn't Work": Author's 300-Executive Interviews Say Enterprise AI Is Failing

vasuman published the essay "Applied AI Doesn't Work," drawing on years inside the world's largest companies and interviews with 300+ CEOs, CIOs and CFOs. Its central claim: the world has poured enormous money into AI, yet almost nothing has changed at most businesses, because companies bolt AI onto existing workflows instead of rearchitecting work around it—producing garbage, just faster. The piece spread widely on social media and reignited debate over enterprise AI outcomes.

Confirmed

Published 09-05; based on interviews with 300+ C-suite executives at the world's largest companies.
Core argument: AI layered onto unchanged processes yields no real business change.
The essay lists typical failure modes, including bulk purchases of thousands of seats.
Aaron Levie shared and commented on the piece; @shashib, @AccBalanced and others amplified it.

Why it matters

A splash of cold water on the enterprise AI boom: huge spend without changed ways of working produces no substantive results.
The sharing by multiple tech figures signals broad resonance and reflects industry-wide anxiety that AI deployments are underdelivering.

2026-09-05 ~ 2026-09-06 · 5 related posts

Primary sources

Interviewing 300 CEOs: most enterprises use AI to speed up garbage processes — vasuman · 2026-09-05 06:17 (UTC+08:00)

[source] Interviewing 300 CEOs: most enterprises use AI to speed up garbage processes — vasuman · 2026-09-05
After talking to 300 CEOs: enterprises spent a fortune on AI and nothing changed — vasuman · 2026-09-05
After 300 CEO interviews, author argues enterprise 'Applied AI' mostly fails — AccBalanced · 2026-09-05
300 CEOs Interviewed: Enterprises Just Apply AI to Old Processes and Get Faster Failures — shashib · 2026-09-06

1 near-duplicate retellings: EXM7777