Corporate AI investments risk a bust, says futurist who likens pilots to dating apps

Futurist Amy Webb warns that companies are investing heavily in AI without accounting for the costs of abundance, leading to endless pilots and 'pilot purgatory.' She compares the situation to dating apps, where the goal is to never settle down. Webb suggests this could lead to a bust in corporate AI spending.

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Webb's firm has tracked a recurring pattern where corporate AI pilots fail to scale because they operate outside normal IT and legal frameworks, forcing teams to restart from scratch each time. One client ran roughly fifteen pilots this year, none reaching production. A Bain survey found nearly forty percent of companies measuring AI savings landed below ten percent, yet ninety percent still plan budget increases.

The disconnect extends to workforce dynamics. Andreessen claims large firms are overstaffed by as much as three-quarters and use AI as cover for cuts, though Oxford Economics attributes only a small fraction of US job losses to AI explicitly. Webb's dating-app analogy captures the structural incentive: endless experimentation without commitment, leaving executives in decision paralysis.

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