AI won't fix corporate software bloat, argues new analysis of enterprise tools
A commentary piece examines why large companies remain stuffed with sprawling, disorganized software stacks—from SAP and Workday to countless spreadsheets and scripts—despite growing AI capabilities. It challenges the Silicon Valley assumption that generative AI will let anyone instantly build custom tools to replace this mess, arguing that most workers aren't tool-builders and don't think in terms of reinventing their workflows.
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The piece pushes back on a popular narrative that AI will rapidly dissolve enterprise software complexity by letting non-engineers generate tools on demand. Understanding why organizational change lags behind technical capability matters for anyone forecasting how quickly AI will actually transform corporate operations, versus simply adding another layer to existing systems.
- Large enterprises already run on hundreds or thousands of overlapping software tools, often untracked.
- AI lowers the barrier to building automation, but most employees don't naturally think like tool-builders.
- Real organizational transformation depends on human behavior and workflow habits, not just tool availability.
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick — If this piece has you thinking about how AI reshapes the sprawl of enterprise software and repetitive work, Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence is the natural next read. It's a practical, grounded guide to using large language models as collaborators for everyday tasks—exactly the shift from building tools to just asking for the outcome that the article describes.
See Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: ben-evans.com — Benedict Evans, 2026-09-06
Published there as: “AI, Tools and Transformation”
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