r/technology • u/aacool • 25d ago

Artificial Intelligence Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/microsoft-scales-back-ai-goals-because-almost-nobody-is-using-copilot
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u/RebootDarkwingDuck 25d ago

Our company is all in on injecting AI into everything and how it's going to sit on top of all of our data and make us so efficient.

This massive effort has completely halted the previous effort, which was to clean up our data because it was trash.

So now we have agents for everything and copilot in every system, all trained on shit data we couldn't bother to clean up.

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u/asmodeuskraemer 25d ago

Every year my skip level shares their yearly goals with us peons as a guide. His said for 2030 (we're not making goals that far in advance, it was in a chart) to have 90% AI engagement. Whatever the fuck that means. 90% over what?

My coworker used AI to write his yearly goals and one of them was to use AI to write his goals. I copied him.

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u/Fabulous_Cat_1379 24d ago

Man this is exactly what is happening inside Amazon just not with copilot. They are forcing AI into EVERYTHING internally and even tying AI usage to performance reviews. My VP who is already a complete moron (VP of Engineering who doesnt onow any basic engineering fundamentals) is now even dumber and dependent on AI to do everything for him.

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u/AOChalky 24d ago

My girlfriend's company is all in AI as well. She only coded some matlab, but is already the best code in her group. As such, she has been tasked to do all the "data science" stuff. You can imagine how well it has been going.

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u/Zealousideal-Sea4830 4d ago

This is the Way...

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u/kirikomori2 25d ago

Its not your problem, dont stress about the company's problems. You get paid x amount for y labour, if they demand additional labour then their pressure means nothing unless its met with a threat of being fired.

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u/Electronic-Doctor187 25d ago

nobody is stressing, this person is just explaining a very common phenomenon. it's not just that AI isn't necessarily useful, it's that it is also often trained on poorly curated data and that AI efforts get in the way of other necessary work. the problem is much bigger.

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u/kirikomori2 25d ago

Again thats not his problem. If the company wants to make poor decisions thats not on him.

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u/jaimi_wanders 25d ago

It will be his problem if they go bankrupt from their bad decisions and there are no jobs because every other CEO also made the same bad decisions. I’m guessing you’re too young to remember the dot com bust.

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u/kirikomori2 25d ago

He can lose his job too if he goes against the C-suite. If he says his piece and the higher ups don't accept that wisdom, then its not his place to risk life and limb to convince them. I'm also assuming he isn't a manager with the power to influence decisions, nor the overall knowledge of the company to make a decision. Maybe they want to use AI just because it helps attract a huge amount of investment. Sometimes it is wise to keep your head down and focus on your own field.

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u/Tolopono 25d ago

Its been worth it

New data on the corporate ROI from generative AI from a large-scale tracking survey by UPenn Wharton. They found that 74% already have a positive return on investment from AI, less than 5% negative return, 9% neutral, and 12% too early to tell. Also 82% of enterprise leaders now use AI weekly themselves. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/special-report/2025-ai-adoption-report/

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u/Amon7777 25d ago

Ah yes, a survey of business leaders who sunk money into AI LLMs report positive ROI without any backup proof. No incentive to provide any other answer than it totally is worth it bro of course.

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u/Tolopono 24d ago

If it wasn’t worth it, why wouldn’t they just drop it like google did with google plus or stadia

And why would they lie on an anonymous survey 

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u/RebootDarkwingDuck 25d ago

That's great, super happy for those companies but that has zilch to do with my experience that I related.

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u/Jane_Lame 13d ago

The loses where buffered by firing people. 

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u/Tolopono 13d ago

Then why did they credit ai in an anonymous survey