Either AI is a magical enterprise cure-all whose effects are literally indescribable — or it’s really not all that useful.
Which of the two will ultimately turn out to be correct is a question currently hanging over the global economy like Damocles’ Sword. And now heightening that tension is a damning new analysis by the Financial Times, which found that barely any of the big businesses that have embraced using the tech can say how it’s actually helping them.
After examining hundreds of corporate filings and executive transcripts from the largest companies listed on the S&P 500 index, the paper found that the prevailing justification for incorporating AI was that everyone else was using it — famously the hallmark of any trend that ends up aging well.
“When it comes to AI adoption, many companies aren’t guided by strategy but by ‘FOMO,'” Haritha Khandabattu, senior director analyst at Gartner, told the FT. That’s short for “Fear of missing out.”
“For some leaders, the question isn’t ‘what problem am I solving?'” Khandabattu continued, “but ‘what if my competitor solves it first?'”
It’s another finding that illustrates both the pitfalls of rapid AI adoption, as well as the outrageous outpouring of hype that drowns out criticisms of the tech in business circles. Many companies have gambled on replacing their employees with AI agents, only to eat crow when the tech falls flat and they’re forced to rehire humans. One MIT study found that an embarrassing 95 percent of companies that incorporated AI saw no meaningful growth in revenue. With profits and colossal investments on the line, AI’s usefulness remains glaringly elusive.
You’d be hard pressed to get executives to admit that, though. An overwhelming 374 of the S&P 500 companies mentioned AI on earnings calls in the past 12 months, FT found. And 87 percent of these calls described the tech in glowing, “wholly positive” terms.
A common promise was the broad notion that AI will increase productivity or optimize workflows — but leaders are vague on exactly how this will happen.
Some firms described AI usage that didn’t seem especially relevant to their business. Coca-Cola executives were ebullient about AI, even though the tech’s application had nothing to do with manufacturing soft drinks but was instead used to make a single TV commercial, per the FT. (It wasn’t clear which one, but we’re guessing it was this monstrosity. Or maybe this one.)
Meanwhile, the companies that can boast clear benefits from AI are directly profiting from the AI hype-cycle-slash-bubble, not the tech’s capabilities. These included energy companies supplying power to AI data centers, or mining companies that are seeing metal prices stay up thanks to data center construction.
Yet even in this zealous atmosphere — and as the companies jump through hoops to make it sound like their AI investments are accomplishing anything worthwhile — the big businesses couldn’t help raise some sobering items of concern.
The most common of these was cybersecurity, with more than half of the S&P 500 companies in 2024 citing it as a potential issue. The dating app Match, for example, warned that AI has been known to cause “cybersecurity incidents that implicate the personal data of end users of AI-enhanced services.”
As AI developers are getting sued left and right for copyright infringement, nor could businesses ignore the tech’s potential to be a massive legal liability. Anthropic is on the hook for $1.5 billion that it needs to pay to authors for allegedly training its AI on their books without permission — and that was a good deal, as it was potentially faced with a $1 trillion in damages.
“Our use of artificial intelligence may result in increased claims of infringement or other claims, including those based on unauthorised use of third-party technology or content,” multinational food conglomerate Pepsico pondered. To which your response might be: what does the faceless entity behind Pepsi and Lay’s chips need AI for?
“Companies tend to see AI as a risk because they’re not used to having systems or processes which they can’t rely upon 100 per cent,” Ray Eitel-Porter, an AI governance expert, told the FT.
Behind cybersecurity, companies are also crippled by the fear that their AI tests will simply fail. Even Meta, which is one of the leaders in the AI race and has seen its market cap surge by over 600 percent since the AI boom began, is biting its fingernails.
“There can be no assurance that the usage of AI will enhance our products or services or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency or profitability,” Meta wrote in a government filing last year. “We may not be successful in our artificial intelligence initiatives, which could adversely affect our business, reputation, or financial results.”
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