AI hasn't taken your job, but it's already costing businesses billions: companies are rethinking their AI strategies

Despite years of predictions about mass unemployment caused by the rise of artificial intelligence, reality has turned out somewhat differently. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged that his earlier estimates regarding the speed at which AI would replace human workers were overly pessimistic. Instead, a growing number of companies are facing a different challenge — the extraordinarily high costs of implementing AI solutions whose effectiveness often falls short of expectations.

This was highlighted by AI adoption and digital transformation expert Vitalii Kiro in his recent column.

According to Kiro, when people refer to "artificial intelligence" today, they are usually talking about large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. These systems can generate text, analyze information, and perform a wide range of tasks. However, they do not constitute true artificial intelligence in the scientific sense. Operating them requires substantial computing resources, making them increasingly expensive for businesses.

The first signs of disappointment are already emerging among major corporations. One of the largest Pizza Hut franchise operators on the U.S. East Coast has filed a $100 million lawsuit against its parent company over the AI-powered delivery management system Dragontail. According to the complaint, the technology failed to improve operations and instead reduced on-time delivery rates, negatively affecting sales.

Starbucks has faced similar challenges. The company abandoned an automated inventory management system less than a year after its launch. The decision followed numerous inventory tracking errors that prevented the algorithms from accurately determining stock levels across its stores.

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