It doesn't seem to even be about making metrics go up. It's about telling a narrative-reinforcing story: That AI is great. It's worth it. Leadership is right to be obsessed with it.

I would have thought that in a fight between "fooling ourselves with a story" and "metrics go up" that the metrics would win, but it seems to not be the case.

what you said is what I was thinking. Thanks for phrasing it so eloquently

Same thing happened to work from home. Meta straight up sabotaged the reason for it's own rebrand in service of it.

How do you mean?

A return to the office mandate from a company that was not only selling augmented reality but specifically selling remote workplace themed augmented reality applications rather undermines the message.

Not really: Meta's overall brand was not in general about using AR headsets in the workplace, if you factor in IG and WA. Developing AR is not necessarily the same as using it for leisure let alone using it in the workplace, notwithstanding Meta's marketing claiming it could be used for that. (Are there any stats to show that business users in general ever believed Meta's marketing on AR? I'm not aware of any.)

Also, the RTO mandate can serve as a basis/pretext for layoffs and cost consolidation, although CXOs tend not to admit that directly.

Oh, if the narrative pressure is strong enough people will just fake the metrics.

The promise of replacing your expensive staff who talk back with cheap malleable AI is just too tempting.