In this op-ed, Frontier CEO Matt Hunt argued that while recent research suggests AI is having little impact on business, the reality is very different – with leading companies already restructuring around it and embedding it in the decisions that actually drive performance.
Look, it’s pretty easy to glance at how the average marketing team uses AI and reckon – as a recent B&T article on new research suggests – that its impact on business is “essentially zero.”
But if you actually want to see what AI is doing to the world, don’t go poking around a marketer’s ChatGPT history. Pull up the earnings calls from the world’s biggest tech companies and have a proper squiz.
Just in the first few months of 2026: Atlassian sent 1,600 people packing; specifically to funnel the savings into AI. Salesforce axed 4,000 jobs off the back of strong earnings. Amazon kept right on cutting headcount while going all-in on AI internally.
These aren’t small bets. These are companies blowing up their own org charts. You don’t do that for a technology with “zero impact.” You do it because something fundamental has shifted in how businesses run and scale.
So what’s going on? Why are the smartest companies on the planet betting the house on AI, while the average business is sitting there going “meh, it wrote me a decent email once”?
Simple. Most businesses are treating AI like it’s on probation.
Playing It Safe
We’ve taken the most powerful technology of our generation and stuck it in a corner with the interns. It summarises meeting notes. It churns out blog posts that are fine, I guess. It creates a stock photo that’s close enough.
We’ve kept AI in the shallow end. Low-risk, low-stakes admin and content stuff, because it feels comfortable. But if you only ever take low-stakes swings, don’t be surprised when you score low-stakes runs.
Here’s a good example: using AI to knock out 50 social posts in ten seconds feels like a win, right? But if those posts aren’t connected to a smart strategy, you haven’t moved your business forward. You’ve just found a quicker way to make noise.
Time to Let It Off the Leash
I look at this completely differently. If you want AI to actually shift the dial, you’ve got to let it near the real decisions, the ones with dollars attached.
The real value isn’t in helping someone punch up a first draft. It’s in the high-stakes calls: strategy, planning, and figuring out where your media budget is actually working. That’s where human brains hit their ceiling. And that’s where the bulk of your money gets won or lost.
The businesses scratching their heads wondering where the AI ROI is? They’re using it to write emails. The businesses seeing serious returns? They’re using it to stress-test strategies at scale, model outcomes before they happen, scale their teams and optimise their ad spend on the fly. They’re not using AI to do cheap work faster. They’re using it to do the hard work better and to enable their teams to be better.
Bottom Line
AI’s not a gimmick. It’s not spellcheck with a better vocabulary. It’s a serious analytical engine and as long as you’ve got it locked up doing admin tasks, yeah, its impact on your business will sit right around zero.
But the moment you point it at your strategy and your spend? That’s when things get interesting.
Written by Frontier CEO Matt Hunt.
