Business of Tech: Daily 10-Minute IT Services Insights

AI Fails to Deliver ROI for CEOs While Bot Traffic Surges and CISA Targets End-of-Life Devices

Feb 6, 2026

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

A PwC survey of over 4,400 CEOs across 105 countries found that 56% report artificial intelligence has not delivered meaningful revenue growth or cost savings in the past year. Only one in eight organizations saw both benefits. The core issue, as highlighted by Dave Sobel, lies in poor integration—largely due to data quality challenges and legacy systems—leaving many businesses stuck in what PwC terms “experimentation purgatory.” Despite significant investment, AI infrastructure is often failing to produce measurable returns.

This lack of operational discipline is mirrored by the rising incident of AI bots, which now account for 1 out of every 50 website visits, a sixfold increase from earlier reports. AI is successfully extracting value from enterprise infrastructure through sophisticated scraping, as companies pay for tools that return little and simultaneously fund infrastructure serving AI bots. The operational cost and exposure from bot traffic and ineffective AI tool adoption highlight the disconnect between hype and practical benefit.

Adjacent stories expand on the governance gap and evolving expectations around risk. The U.S. and China declined to sign a non-binding declaration on military AI, underlining global regulatory fragmentation. In contrast, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a binding directive for federal civilian agencies to remove unsupported devices within a year, signaling substantial operational risk from end-of-life technology. These regulatory movements are expected to drive similar risk accountability into the private sector, primarily through insurance requirements.

For MSPs and IT service providers, the takeaway is not to chase AI-powered offerings but to prioritize readiness, control, and cost accountability. Vendor partner programs (Cisco and 1Password) reward lifecycle management and customer retention, not AI sales. The practical competitive advantage is operational honesty—delivering realistic assessments, proactive client interactions, and transparent guidance. Automation should fund genuine client relationship activities, not replace them. The focus should remain on safeguarding operational integrity, controlling technology risk, and building customer success capability.

Four things to know today:

00:00 PwC Survey Finds Most Business Leaders Still Waiting for AI Payoff

05:00 Federal Agencies Ordered to Eliminate End-of-Life Devices Over Cyber Threats

08:06 Cisco and 1Password Launch Partner Programs Focused on Customer Success

10:52 Harvard Business Review Says Human Touch Remains Critical Advantage Over AI

This is the Business of Tech.

Supported by: Small Biz Thought Community