back to article Gartner mages: Payback from office AI expected in around two years

Mainstream adoption of AI in the office and among employees remains around two years off, according to analysis from consultancy Gartner. work Study shock! AI hinders productivity and makes working worse READ MORE So-called “everyday AI” is at the peak of inflated expectations in the view of the global research biz, yet …

  1. eswan

    With Gartner's track record

    Will they be using AI on their itanium workstations?

  2. itsthemonkey

    So are these 2 “Real” years…

    Or are they those weird years that last an infinite amount of time? You know, like the ones they refer to when they always say “quantum computers are 10 years away” no matter how long once they tarted saying that?

    1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

      Nuclear fusion years. Battery breakthrough years. Self-driving car years. Humanoid robots in your house years...

      1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

        Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

        Humans on Mars years ;)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

          Artemis program years

      2. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

        Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

        Starship.

    2. Ryan D

      Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

      Probably about the same as those flying cars people in the 50’s have been waiting for all these years.

    3. Androgynous Cow Herd

      Re: So are these 2 “Real” years…

      <quote> "itsthemonkey":

      You know, like the ones they refer to when they always say “quantum computers are 10 years away”

      </quote>

      Do you understand how quantum mathematics work? They ARE always 10 years away...from yesterday

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Profit or prophet

    > Payback from office AI expected in around two years

    Does "payback" mean revenge?

    That the managers who recommended AI solutions will find themselves replaced by a computer program that falls for all the hype of new, shiny, solutions and recommends them upwards, with no understanding of what they do or what their limitations are?

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: Profit or prophet

      It will not be the managers, it will be people who actually do real work.

      Then things will all go to shit and they will blame those who lost their jobs due to something being "poorly implemented etc.

      The decision makers in these situations are rarely held to account.

  4. EricM

    Can we agree on a date when Paek Gartner happened?

    I'll start: 2015

    Since then they are sliding down the slope of obviousness. No enlightenment in sight ...

    1. NotMeEither

      They have left the "magic" quadrant...

    2. TReko Silver badge

      There's always a market for BS peddlers. The credit ratings agencies survived their colossal role in the 2008 GFC of marking junk debt as "AAA"

      I predict Gartner will remain around doing the "thinking" for those who now call themselves "thought leaders".

      1. Andys1

        Or as we call them here, the "Ministry of Stating the Bl**dy Obvious".

        When I worked in the public sector, senior management lapped up the annual Gartner reports like they were gospel. Always reminded me of the tale of the emperor's new clothes. I'm surprised organisations still fall for their guff in this day and age.

  5. Bendacious Silver badge

    Gambling addicts

    As this article alludes to, machine learning is now a giant gamble that affects us all. When Zuckerborg had a brain fart and thought spending the GDP of a small country on us all wearing VR headsets was a good idea, he was really only throwing away Facebook investor's money. With machine learning though, so many large companies have thrown so much money at it that if there is no return on the investment it will affect all of us. Massive job losses and stock market crashes hurt most people eventually. Maybe society needs a way to temper this kind of 'innovation' because gambling with other people's money is too much fun.

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    So not in two years, then?

  7. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    WHy does the media give time to fakes like Gartner to peddle their fake bullshit ?

    Bad things often happen from big lies, giving them a platform doesnt make the world a better place.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. mcswell

    Moving at 99.9% of the speed of light

    Two years for a passenger moving at 0.999c would be the equivalent of about 45 years on Earth (not counting acceleration and deceleration). That might be long enough for AI to become something useful.

    1. collinsl Silver badge

      Re: Moving at 99.9% of the speed of light

      How long will it take to come up with the technology to get a person up to that speed though?

      My guess is about 10 years...

      1. Rich 11 Silver badge

        Re: Moving at 99.9% of the speed of light

        Add another ten years for the fusion technology necessary to power it...

  9. NotMeEither

    What is the point of Gartner

    Other than inflating hype bubbles what is the point of Gartner?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is the point of Gartner

      <sarcasm>

      But the C-Suite love them! It gives them warm fuzzy feelings and dreams of a bonus they can use to buy their 3rd home or 13th expensive car.

      </sarcasm>

    2. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

      Re: What is the point of Gartner

      Backing up decisions that executives have already made with ostensibly external, unbiased research.

  10. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

    It's well-known

    In marketing, 2 years == "mañana"

  11. Bebu
    Windows

    "services that can write a report with minimal guidance"

    I am wondering who or what is going to read or ingest these "reports?" More AI?

    Hordes of AI "assistants" all "eating" the shite the others producing.

    Even in nature that won't work out in the long run without the injection of energy from a bit of sunlight (photosynthesis;) or other energy source as all you end up with is a great pile of dead shit.

    1. JLV
      Trollface

      Re: "services that can write a report with minimal guidance"

      On a directly related note, there are a number of LLM researchers that are publishing studies indicating that training LLMs on LLM-written material gradually lobotomizes the poor things.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "services that can write a report with minimal guidance"

        Gartner consultants are being trained only on Gartner reports.

  12. NLCSGRV

    Gartner feeding its own hype cycle

    No surprise there.

  13. munnoch Bronze badge

    Summarise

    "summarise chats and email messages to services that can write a report with minimal guidance"

    and then summarise the report back to itself...

    The assumption with the obsession on summarisation as the killer app (the *only* app?) seems to be that we are all shit communicators who have no idea how to express ourselves effectively or have any ability to comprehend what others are saying. Which is probably fair, but AI ain't gonna change that.

    To quote Galaxy Quest - "Explain, as you would a child"...

    1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

      Re: Summarise

      To quote Idiocracy: "It's got electrolytes!"

  14. MOH

    The one thing that could definitely be completely replaced by AI with absolute no downside, no loss of accuracy or reliability, is Gartner.

    Actually, may that's already happened, given their spokesperson is A Preset

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remember, payback can be a bitch!

  16. GraXXoR Bronze badge

    Oh they’ll get payback alright…

    But likely not kind they imagined.

  17. Ramis101

    I see how this happened.

    "Our research shows .....

    .....including tools to help workers find and condense relevant information and answer questions more comprehensively

    Did they use AI to do their own research???

    Just Sayin!

    1. O'Reg Inalsin

      Re: I see how this happened. ... And this:

      > Workstyle analytics suggests we need a clear focus on curating the analytics required to optimize the combination of technology, talent and business outcomes facilitated by the digital workplace

      BAM!, what a knockout sentence. Who isn't impressed? I can imagine the reports creator literally crying with happiness as the words appeared before them, much like the words of God appeared to Moses on the Mount. Proof that it really works. Now for the implementation ...........................................................................................................

  18. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

    If anyone from Gartner reads this: if you're so sure, let's make a bet. Let's pick some milestones to be hit by [consults calendar] August 16, 2026. Let's pick a stake and some judges.

    Of course nobody from Gartner would ever take such a bet, because they know they have no idea what the state of the industry is going to be like in two years, and it's not their job to know. It's their job to make whatever mouth noises will support the case of whoever hires them.

  19. teebie

    "Mainstream adoption of AI in the office and among employees remains around two years off, according to analysis from consultancy Gartner."

    The missed the "and will remain, in perpetuity" after "remains"

  20. Carnes

    Lines up with personal work experience. We spent 10 months developing a product based on gen ai. Total accuracy was like 30% for the first 6 months. We nearly scrapped the project but after several reworks we got to 80%. It has allowed a team of 2 to do the same work as a team 6. Same work output and quality.

    The biggest pivot was moving away from the idea that it could be fully automated. Instead, it does most of the busy work and a human can make final decisions.

    Ai has been awesome for finding information, summarizing, and giving suggestions. It's abysmal for making critical business decisions.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      When AI is able to spot the weak signals that are potentially important, and to identify minor mutterings that have great significance, then I'll be impressed.

      Until then (perhaps 2324) all AI will be good for is the sort of thing Gartner themselves do - interview a bunch of self important bigwigs on what they think the future is, spew out in a report the median view, and then sell this report back to said bigwigs.

      I've tried using AI to summarise organisational annual reports I've written, and the results were dismal. Apparently written in coherent English, but utterly unable to separate the routine from the significant.

    2. Ace2 Silver badge

      80% accurate? In what field is that acceptable?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Medicine.

  21. martinusher Silver badge

    Event Horizon?

    In the workplace we got used to the "six week event horizon" which meant that anything over six weeks out was going to happen "sometime in the future" and could be postponed indefinitely as it was just long enough for everyone to forget exactly what was promised.

    We've seen similar event horizons with other technologies, fusion energy being an obvious example. (Note that this doesn't mean the technology won't eventually yield results, they're just not around the corner.) AI, being primarily composed of existing hardware technology and a lot of hot air (both from the hardware and the salesforces) is going to yield tangible benefits for all "real soon". Two years being long enough for everyone to forget exactly what was promised.

    The only thing that's certain about the mass adoption of AI effects on most of us is that its going to cost us. Any jobs that can be eliminated or downgraded will be. Prices will be sliced 'n diced to the nth degree ensuring that everyone yields the maximum (i.e. everything's going to cost too much). We should do better than this but historical experience tells us that whatever use AI has will be rapidly and irrevocably subverted to the single goal of screwing as many people as possible.

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