Execs admit AI makes them value human workers less
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Execs admit AI makes them value human workers less
As suits say they're burning cash on brainboxes without seeing results
Thomas Claburn
Thomas<br>Claburn
Published<br>wed 13 May 2026 // 03:26 UTC
Executives have leaned in to AI, only to stumble before reaching any return on their investment.<br>"Most AI spending has under-delivered, leaving execs feeling like they’re burning cash," says employment biz G-P (Globalization Partners) in its third annual AI at Work Report.<br>The report finds corporate leaders' enthusiasm for AI waning as ROI proves elusive.
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Sixteen percent of companies saw a negative ROI from AI investments last year, and 73 percent of executives whose AI efforts did pay off said ROI fell short of expectations, according to the report.
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These findings are based on a survey of 2,850 executives (VP level and up) in the US, Germany, Singapore, Australia, and France, including a separate set of 500 US HR professionals.<br>The AI at Work Report is a little cheerier than last year's findings from MIT NANDA researchers who discovered only five percent of organizations have managed to successfully put AI projects into production.
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Regardless, execs anticipate scaling back their AI budgets if organizational goals aren't met this year.<br>Beyond their worries about financial benefits, corporate execs in the G-P survey have doubts about the reliability of AI, a concern borne out by recent Microsoft research.<br>Only 23 percent of the G-P respondents said they have total confidence in AI accuracy. Those concerns mean 69 percent said they spend more time monitoring and reviewing AI, while 61 percent expressed concerns about using AI to craft sensitive documents because they doubt the output is legally accurate.<br>Moral unease doesn't appear to be doing much to help corporate leaders empathize with workers, however. The survey found that "82 percent of executives admit AI has lowered the value they place on human employees."<br>In fact, these leaders appear to have become somewhat suspicious of their people – about 88 percent expressed concern that employees are using AI performatively rather than adding business value.<br>But among such misanthropic, skeptical managers, there's enough lingering humanity to ensure that only 12 percent strongly agree "that sacrificing employee privacy for AI monitoring is worth it to reach business goals."
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Despite the sense that AI has reduced how human workers are valued, about half of execs still cite the scarcity of employees with AI skills and the lack of data literacy as barriers to their AI goals.<br>You still need human talent to stand up money-losing AI projects. ®
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