AI ROI Isn't Hours Saved

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0400

There’s a number that shows up in almost every AI business case I’ve seen, and it always sounds like the end of the argument: it saves our engineers X hours a week. It’s in the vendor deck, the board update, the memo justifying the spend. Sometimes X is four, sometimes it’s ten. Whatever it is, it’s presented as the return – the thing that makes the money back.

It isn’t a return. It’s the beginning of a question about a return, and most of the time nobody asks the rest of it.

Roi on Rough Edges

AI ROI Isn't Hours Saved