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MIT report misunderstood: Shadow AI economy booms while headlines cry failure


A new MIT report reveals that while 95% of corporate AI pilots fail, 90% of workers are quietly succeeding with personal AI tools, driving a hidden productivity boom.

While headlines trumpet that “ 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing,” the report actually reveals something far more remarkable: the fastest and most successful enterprise technology adoption in corporate history is happening right under executives’ noses. A corporate lawyer quoted in the MIT report exemplified the pattern: Her organization invested $50,000 in a specialized AI contract analysis tool, yet she consistently used ChatGPT for drafting work because “the fundamental quality difference is noticeable. Corporate systems get described as “brittle, overengineered, or misaligned with actual workflows,” while consumer AI tools win praise for “flexibility, familiarity, and immediate utility.” As one chief information officer told researchers: “We’ve seen dozens of demos this year.

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