Like a lot of business people, I am interested inartificial intelligence. So I recently askedChatGPTto give me quotes from tech leaders “telling businesses about the importance of AI for their companies”.
This came back fromApple’s Tim Cook:“AI is already making businesses more efficient, more responsive, and more personalized. It’s a growth driver.”
One problem. Cook didn’t actually say that. When I asked ChatGPT where it got that specific quote, the chatbot retreated and said: “I apologize for any confusion earlier. The quote attributed toTim Cookdoes not appear to have a direct source from a verified interview, speech, or official Apple communication.”
So I can’t say I was shocked when I read that arecent surveyof more than 1,000 business leaders by software platform Orgvue found that more than half of those that laid off employees because they thought AI would replace their jobs are now regretting the decision.
Anyone firing employees because they thought that AI would do their jobs in 2025 should be fired. It really doesn’t take much research to see AI isn’t at the place where it’s replacing people – yet. And business managers – particularly in small and mid-sized companies – who think it is better think again.
At best, generative AI platforms are providing a more enhanced version of search, so that instead of sifting through dozens of websites, lists and articles to figure out how to choose a great hotel in Costa Rica, fix a broken microwave oven or translate a phrase from Mandarin to English, we simply ask our chatbot a question and it provides the best answer it finds. These platforms are getting better and more accurate and are indeed useful tools for many of us.
But these chatbots are nowhere near replacing our employees.
“AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation,” concludedtwo researcherswho looked at the labor market impact of AI chatbots on 11 occupations, covering 25,000 workers and 7,000 workplaces in Denmark in 2023 and 2024. “Employers are also shifting gears and actively encouraging it. But when we look at the economic outcomes, it really has not moved the needle.”
In most of today’s workplaces, particularly among the 33m small business owners in the US, AI is not being used in any core operation. Believe me, business owners would love to replace their employees and have their accounting, customer relationship management, inventory, order and payroll systems be done by AI in lieu of them. But that’s just not reality and won’t be a reality for the foreseeable future. Why? For three reasons.
First, the technology doesn’t exist, and what exists doesn’t work very well. Sure, well-known players likeSalesforce,MicrosoftandIntuitare rolling out AI features designed to do everything from processing accounts payable to sending out email marketing campaigns. But these are limited, immature and unreliable efforts. Business owners aren’t going to trust any of these tools to do data entry, make decisions or execute transactions without a human being involved.
Sign up toBusiness Today
Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning
after newsletter promotion
Second, to build these things means giving up data and intellectual property to the likes of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and others, and, to put it mildly, most businesses have little confidence that these companies will secure this data, let alone not use it for their own purposes no matter how many promises, guarantees, disclaimers and assurances they make.
Third and most important, it’s too expensive to build an AI system. Sure, buy-now-pay-later platformKlarnais replacing hundreds of workers with its internally developed customer service system leveraging OpenAI’s large language model. And Meta is using AIto replacemany of its programmers. AndJP Morganand other Wall Street firms are building in-house AI platforms to do the work of itsHarvard MBA graduates. But right now AI is just a big corporate play. These systems cost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Most smaller companies have data in multiple places and can’t afford to hire an AI-experienced developer to bring it all together, even with the tools available, to create their own internal model and then – yikes – build agents on top of this messy, out-of-date and likely inaccurate information to actually perform tasks. Not yet.
There’s no doubt that big things are coming. Of course the systems rolling out today will – like the generative AI platforms we’re using – become more accurate and reliable. Businesses will give in to the loss of their privacy for the benefits AI will provide. Their AI platforms will one day be able to validate when data is potentially incomplete and inaccurate with other sources before launching into tasks.
Yes, the robots driven by firms likeBoston Dynamicswill one day be performing the work that construction and manufacturing workers are doing. Drones will one day deliver packages, monitor workplaces and count inventory. Driverless trucks will deliver our packages and autonomous forklifts will move pallets, and bots that are indistinguishable from humans will talk to our customers and prospects like our people do now.
But that day is still years away. My smartest clients know this and are waiting. Others – such as the ones in the survey above – were simply duped into believing that this stuff actually exists today. It doesn’t.