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95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend

(thedailyadda.com)
418 points speckx | 2 comments | 21 Aug 25 15:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.424s | source
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jawns ◴[21 Aug 25 16:36 UTC] No.44974805[source]▶
Full disclosure: I'm currently in a leadership role on an AI engineering team, so it's in my best interest for AI to be perceived as driving value.

Here's a relatively straightforward application of AI that is set to save my company millions of dollars annually.

We operate large call centers, and agents were previously spending 3-5 minutes after each call writing manual summaries of the calls.

We recently switched to using AI to transcribe and write these summaries. Not only are the summaries better than those produced by our human agents, they also free up the human agents to do higher-value work.

It's not sexy. It's not going to replace anyone's job. But it's a huge, measurable efficiency gain.

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vasco ◴[21 Aug 25 16:39 UTC] No.44974847[source]▶
I wonder if the human agents agree the AI summaries are better than their summaries. I was nodding as I read and then told myself "yeah but it wouldn't be able to summarize the meetings I have", so I wonder if this only works in 3rd person.
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mbStavola ◴[21 Aug 25 16:42 UTC] No.44974890[source]▶
Part of me also wonders if people may agree that its better simply because they don't actually have to do the summarization anymore. Even if it is worse by some %, that is an annoying task you are no longer responsible for; if anything goes wrong down the line, "ah the AI must've screwed up" is your way out.
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roflc0ptic ◴[21 Aug 25 16:44 UTC] No.44974915[source]▶
I’m inclined to believe that call center employees don’t have a lot of incentive to do a good job/care, so a lossy AI could quite plausibly be higher quality than a human
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1. latexr ◴[21 Aug 25 17:20 UTC] No.44975461[source]▶
For many years now, every time I have to talk with someone on a call centre there has been a survey at the end with at least two questions:

1. Would you recommend us?

2. Was the agent helpful?

I have a friend who used to work at a call centre and would routinely get the lowest marks on the first item and the highest on the second. I do that when the company has been shitty but I understand the person on the line really made an effort to help.

Obviously, those ratings go back to the supervisor and matter for your performance reviews, which can make all the difference between getting a raise or being fired. If anything, call centre employees have a lot of incentive to do a good job if they have any intention of keeping it, because everything they do with a customer is recorded and scrutinised.

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2. roflc0ptic ◴[21 Aug 25 21:52 UTC] No.44978530[source]▶
Fair point, though I think “did I accurately summarize a conversation” is much harder to check/get away with vs “did I piss off the person on the other end”