Summary
Simply adding AI to existing processes does not deliver the payoff many companies expect. David Shapiro, who spent 15 years in IT and cloud infrastructure before turning to AI and now works as a fractional chief AI officer, shares what he heard in three conversations in one day with companies of roughly 5, 40, and 700 employees.
Shapiro describes a recurring pattern in business adoption: skepticism, then surprise, then normalization, and then the cycle repeats with each new wave, from chatbots and reasoning models to tool use and agentic workflows. He argues many organizations fail to expect continuous change, and that individuals are becoming several times more productive without the company delivering more overall.
His central point is that the work itself needs to be refactored, not just accelerated. He discusses the productivity J-curve, in which output can dip during restructuring, and notes that private equity firms are pursuing AI-driven margin improvement while keeping playbooks private. He also claims that most companies in his client segment that lay off staff because of AI regret it, and argues that the best results come from redesigning value streams rather than cutting headcount.
📺 Source: David Shapiro · Published November 08, 2026
🏷️ Format: Opinion Editorial
