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Comment by datenyan | Hacker News Reader

I know it's old-hat to say at this point, but I'm getting really exhausted of seeing companies trying to sate investors and techbros by introducing more and more AI-powered "features" into existing applications. I don't need to be able to generate images in my Facebook messenger chat with my parents, nor do I need to ask Microsoft Copilot how to use my own computer.

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I work at a B2B SaaS and we have so many customers asking us about about our plans for integrating AI into our platform, for no other reason other than their leadership/stakeholders want to use more AI.

We ask them what they want the AI to do and they don't have an answer. They just want AI

> We ask them what they want the AI to do and they don't have an answer. They just want AI

Perhaps I'm just not management-brained enough but this just seems so foreign to me - why introduce features just because they're the buzzword? It's not even like they have a path to making it profitable, it's just the same buzz as "Web3" and "Crypto" repackaged.

I can't really explain it either, but it's just how it works. Internal proposals that use the latest buzzwords succeed much more than those that don't. I remember seeing this with big data, smart city, sustainability, resilience and a few others - often when it was a huge stretch no find any relevance whatsoever.

Seems perfectly reasonable for people to be chasing buzzwords, when most people don't understand the underlying causal reasons for actual business success. Much safer to follow the herd rather than be left behind.

That is simple. The board sets top level strategy goals. Could be AI at one point it was Mobile. Then groups fight for resources (money) in each silo who come up with projects that incorporate these strategic goals. If the goal is mobile, customer service department fights for phones for each cs agent. Sales wants all websites mobile friendly. It leads to internal tools team jumps in and makes internal tools mobile friendly (but no one using them has a mobile device). Much time/money is wasted but people get promoted, bonuses paid, jobs created because of these goals. Senior leaderships get to say we are more mobile than this company.

The entire top down strategy approach thing is a waste.

There was a time 8 years or so ago when Sundar declared each team needed an AI OKR. Every ambitious manager and team lead took it to heart and basically tried to wedge in some AI adjacent product feature to wedge into the product. That was not fun.

OKR: Objectives and Key Results

As a business leader you want to take the best chances to overtake your competition. That means trying out tools like ai, crypto, mobile, big data, etc.

Would those tools help? Most times no, but it is your responsability to try ideas that might give you an edge.

It’s one of those “X and Y problem” things people on StackOverflow talk about. The Y is “we want to achieve the same or higher productivity while reducing payroll” and they’ve heard that AI is a way to do that (an X).

This is also called solutioneering.

Maybe this'll work.

"We have linear regressions in our metrics pages, yes we have AI"

"We have if/else statements in our code, yes we have AI"

Every time I talk to my GCP account reps they kind of half-heartedly pitch me their new AI features. I respond that there are no business problems I would see value from approaching with AI / LLMs (as that’s what they really mean by “AI” these days). They basically immediately agree and we move on to real problems.

At this point it really is Our Lord and Saviour the Blockchain all over again.

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