The 5% Problem: Why Your AI Agents Aren’t Paying Off

The 5% Problem: Why Your AI Agents Aren’t Paying Off

Ninety-five percent of corporate AI projects are returning basically nothing. Not a little — nothing. And the MIT research behind that number isn't an indictment of the technology. It's an indictment of how companies pick, scope, and measure AI work. Karl's position: the failure is organizational design wearing an AI costume. The models are fine. The deployment isn't. You'll walk out with a six-step checklist for building agents that actually pay off, a clear framework for why "find the dollar before the use case" changes your prioritization completely, and an honest look at why broad mandates like "transform customer service with AI" aren't projects — they're wishes. If you've got a pilot that looked good in the demo and went quiet in real work, this episode is the postmortem you didn't know you needed. Follow Unreal Intelligence so you don't miss the next one.

Your AI Ban Is Your Biggest Security Risk

A bank blocked ChatGPT at the firewall, sent the all-staff email, and felt good about it. Six months later, forty percent of their knowledge workers were using it anyway — on personal phones, pasting in whatever they needed, completely invisible to the security team. The ban didn't stop the AI. It stopped the company from seeing it. That's the argument Karl makes in this episode: a blanket AI ban isn't a control. It's a blindfold. And it may be the single biggest security gap in your company right now. You'll come away knowing exactly how to pull a shadow usage report and what to do with the number you find. You'll understand what enterprise AI contracts actually give you that a personal account never will — and why that difference matters legally, not just technically. And you'll get five concrete moves to replace your ban with something that creates real visibility and real governance. More usage, less risk. That's not a contradiction. It's the whole point. If you've got a ban in place — or you're about to put one in — this one's worth your commute.

Unreal Intelligence - The History of AI

EKA Technology, LLC brings you Unreal Intelligence a podcast on the history, use and trends in AI