Former Alphabet Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt told an audience at Miami Beach's Faena Forum that worries about employee push-back on artificial-intelligence roll-outs are overblown because AI will “solve the problems that humans ask for.”
What Happened: Schmidt was responding to a Ph.D. researcher who mentioned that 75% of digital-transformation projects stall when workers resist new tools. Schmidt argued that today's high failure rate for corporate tech projects reflects buggy "poor-quality" software and not human resistance.
He predicted that the next wave of generative AI systems, trained on hard business goals such as customer satisfaction and profits, will fix that.
He urged the questioner to test the hypothesis in his dissertation: "Can you imagine a situation where the software works right?" If AI models are tuned to clear, quantifiable objectives, Schmidt said, businesses will finally get tech that does precisely what it promises.
McKinsey, BCG and Forbes studies put the share of digital initiatives that miss their goals at roughly 80%. Employee acceptance is the Achilles' heel. One 2024 survey by RiseNow found 75–95% fail because staff won't use the new tools.
Why It Matters: Schmidt's Miami remarks expand on his more recent warning at TED 2025 that workers who ignore AI "won't be relevant" and his estimate that agentic AI could lift productivity by 30% a year — a surge he explains "economists have no models for."
He also cautioned that AI will deepen confusion between online and offline realities, echoing comments he made in the same Faena Forum session about blurred perception.
As far as predictions go, the former Google boss has a knack for getting his tech predictions for the near future right. Schmidt, in 2016, rightly predicted the playbook for a company like OpenAI to rise to the fore soon. Before that, he’d similarly predicted the rise of service-based apps like Uber.
It is worth mentioning that Alphabet has earned a growth score of 88.56% according to Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings. Click here to compare it with other companies.
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