As someone who has experience building a small AI powered company and making these decisions on a small scale, I can say maybe?

For some companies, automation that is based on being able to pull info from a gigantic knowledge base that still has bounds is helpful for them. Most orgs are still figuring this out in the face of immense pressure from their stakeholders not to fall behind and miss any potential windfall. They don’t know how LLMs can help them but the hype may push them in the black or lead to (false) growth so they lean in.

I think many of the larger tech companies were hoping to make human engineers obsolete so that they could achieve the true promise of SaaS - almost no investment, instant money faucet. Unfortunately for them, we still need people to help us understand people so engineers, designers, and product managers aren’t as expendable as some of them were hoping.

No one thought AI would be free or cheap, but a LOT of ppl bet that the true cost could be obfuscated or waved away temporarily while the money was stupid and then revealed once enterprise was addicted and struggled to manage their switching costs. By then the smartest folks have made their money, moved it to safer havens, and await the next stage of the lifecycle.

I love LLMs but the way we use them seems very stupid, IMHO. It’s like everything is a screw now but everyone still has bolts and nails.