Opinion ·
AI: the technological revolution demands more of firms than investment
Original title, in French: “IA : la révolution technologique demande aux cabinets davantage que des investissements”
- Publication
- Journal du Net (France)
- Author
- Chronique de Laurent Salanie
- Published on
- 19 October 2026 · read in the page metadata
Summary
In this opinion piece, Laurent Salanié argues that the adoption of AI in professional firms is shifting competitive advantage from technology investment to the learning capacity of their leaders. He draws on Ethan Mollick (Wharton), who holds that nobody knows in advance what AI brings to a given profession, and on an MIT study published in summer 2025 according to which 95% of enterprise generative AI pilot projects have no measurable impact, despite tens of billions invested. The author concludes that transformative uses emerge through successive trial and error, and that mid-sized firms, being more agile, could gain an advantage from this. He closes with a quote from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft: "You can outsource work, not learning."
Summary based on the full text of the article.
Read the article on Journal du Net →Figures cited
-
95 %
Share of enterprise generative AI pilot projects with no measurable impact on results
Enterprise generative AI pilot projects, study published in summer 2025
« Selon une étude du MIT publiée à l'été 2025, 95 % des projets pilotes d'IA générative en entreprise restent sans impact mesurable sur les résultats, malgré des dizaines de milliards investis. »
Source: MIT
Classification
- Country
- France
- Company size
- All sizes
- Industries
- Consulting, legal, accounting, business services
- Companies
- MIT (study author), Microsoft (cited)
- Keywords
- professional services firms, experimentation, organisational learning, AI pilot projects, transformation of work
Entry written by Marsanne Studio from the cited article, with the help of an AI model (claude-sonnet-5). The rights to the article and its illustrations belong to Journal du Net and its author. Entry translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.