AI adoption is booming, but productivity gains take time

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research puts a number on what Ian Baer has been saying all along: 80% of firms using AI report no measurable impact on productivity. Adoption is nearly universal. Results aren't.

Baer's diagnosis is direct — most companies are bolting AI onto broken processes instead of using it to rethink the process itself. If your targeting, message, and channel are already wrong, AI doesn't fix the problem. It just helps you waste money faster.

The practitioners Baer trusts most have been quietly piloting use cases before rolling anything out. Doing it right, he argues, sometimes means not doing it first. And building real AI capability means investing in the human talent that makes the technology worth anything — because according to Baer, you can't AI your way to wisdom.