Big company's Head of AI: 10% of employees drive 90% of AI productivity gains
_AustinCalvert_ · x · 2026-10-28
A poster spoke with the Head of AI at a large company. Their #1 struggle: what to do with AI laggards. Like most companies, a "Super Pareto Principle" holds: 10% of employees account for 90% of the uplift in productivity/token usage, from software engineering to non-technical knowledge work.
Despite heavy investment in AI enablement—LLM fundamentals through function-specific training—the power law of productivity gains hasn't budged. That leaves hard questions: 90% of people are overpaid and 10% underpaid; tokens should arguably be allocated along the power law, but without killing culture; and significant layoffs likely wouldn't hurt overall output.
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