lacking clear gains
February 19, 2026
a running list of articles and annecdoatal evidence that ai isn't providing real productivity boosts
this list enumerates things that i've happened to glimpse online that suggest that (1) the productivity boosts provided by ai are minimal if not moot and/or (2) real companies are backing off the ai bet. i'm keeping this since i feel like i'm between a rock and a hard place: the claims made by these articles are so obvious as to be weather-level banal and yet (and yet) it seems like the c-suite execs are still so sure they can squeeze some extra juice utilizing this highly subsidized, ready to bubble burst, technology.
use whenever your boomer boss shows you that article about how engineers at spotify aren't writing code anymore or whatever.
the list
- IBM is tripling the number of Gen Z entry-level jobs after finding the limits of AI adoption
- A Huge Survey of CEOs and Other Execs Just Found Something Damning About AI’s Effects on Productivity
- The AI productivity trap: Why your best engineers are getting slower
- '...the single greatest frustration for developers is dealing with AI solutions that look correct but are slightly wrong.'