AI News · Edition 76 ·
Still waiting for the AI payoff, so test small and measure
A widely discussed critique says AI isn't paying off outside tech yet. Here's what that means for a school, clinic or workshop budget.
The one that matters
A widely read critique says AI isn't paying off outside tech yet. What that means for your budget
What happened
A piece arguing that there are no signs of AI paying off outside the tech sector was one of the most-discussed items among software developers this week. As its headline puts it, the claim is blunt: outside companies that build or sell technology, AI isn't paying off yet in any way you can see. It came out in the same week that Bank of America analysts said investors will be watching Microsoft's next results for how much money Copilot is bringing in. Copilot is Microsoft's paid AI assistant for its office software. Put plainly, the people selling AI and the people funding it are still waiting to see whether ordinary businesses will pay for it, and whether it pays those businesses back.
What it means for your business
Maybe you run a 600-student school, a 30-bed clinic or a workshop with 40 staff, and you've been worried that you're falling behind on AI. This should ease the pressure. If whole industries are struggling to find the payoff, your competitors haven't quietly pulled ahead while you weren't looking.
It also matches what many owners see in their own offices. The tools help with individual chores, but the help doesn't add up to a visible change in the business. A school office that uses a chat assistant to draft a fee-reminder circular in English and Hindi saves twenty minutes. A clinic receptionist who uses it to tidy up a patient instruction sheet saves ten. Those savings are real, but they're scattered across people's days. They rarely turn into fewer overtime hours, more patients seen or more orders shipped. Unless someone decides where the saved time goes, it just disappears.
Then there's the cost. Business plans for the major AI assistants usually cost about US$20–30 per person per month. Give all 40 people in that workshop a seat and you're spending roughly ₹70,000 to ₹1 lakh, or C$1,100 to C$1,650, every month on something nobody has measured.
What it does not mean
It doesn't mean AI is useless, and it isn't a reason to ban it. The industry-wide numbers can show no payoff while one specific task in your business still gets faster. What it does mean is that whoever is selling to you has to prove the benefit.
Two groups are overstating things. The first is vendors and consultants who promise AI will transform a business like yours: cut staff, automate operations, pay for itself within months. If results like that were common outside tech, they would be hard to miss. The second is the camp that will take this headline as proof that AI is a bubble you can ignore. One widely shared argument doesn't settle the question. Your staff are probably already using these tools on personal accounts, whether you have a policy or not.
What a sensible owner should do this month
- Pick one or two dull, repetitive writing tasks. At a school, that might be circulars and fee reminders. At a clinic, appointment reminders and patient instruction sheets, always checked by a clinician. At a workshop, quotes and supplier emails. Don't try to use AI for everything.
- Buy two or three seats, not forty. Pay monthly, with no annual commitment. For most small businesses that comes to under ₹8,000 or C$130 a month.
- Measure before and after. Write down how long the task takes now, then check again after 30 days. If you can't point to hours saved and say where they went, cancel.
- Write a one-page rule listing what must never be pasted into a chat tool: patient details, student records, salary data, customer ID numbers. Privacy law in both India and Canada covers that data whether or not AI is involved.
- Ask every AI vendor one question: can I call a customer of yours who is my size and in my sector? If all they can show you is a slide, you have your answer.
The honest summary: AI is a decent tool for specific chores and an unproven bet for changing how a whole business runs. Spend accordingly.
Also worth knowing
How this briefing is put together
Every morning we read the day’s AI announcements and reporting from the companies themselves and from the technology press, then pick the handful that actually change something for a working business. The analysis is ours and it is written for owners and managers, not engineers. Every story links to its original source — read them, and disagree with us where we’ve got it wrong.