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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) · Thursday, July 2, 2026

AI Productivity Puzzle: Companies Question ROI on Increased Spend

Many companies are realizing that despite increased AI spending, the expected gains in productivity and revenue have not materialized. This observation is leading to a re-evaluation of AI strategies and a focus on tangible results.

The tape

3 quotes
Folks are realizing that they've ramped up their AI spend on product, it seems to have worked subjectively, qualitatively, but the productivity isn't there to justify it.
Rory O'Driszkell
I think if you look across even any of our portfolio companies that are doing well, that are not purely reselling tokens, they're coming to the conclusion that I'm not quite sure what the hell I'm doing here.
Rory O'Driszkell
And so many folks are not seeing the lift from net revenue, net productivity they thought from agentic code.
Rory O'Driszkell
Heard on The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) — “20VC: Dario and Anthropic Declare War on Open-Source | Coinbase Slash AI Spend by 50% | Kalshi's $40BN Valuation and Impending IPO | Bending Spoons: Smartest IPO of 2026 and the Year for SaaS Roll-Ups, published Thursday, July 2, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
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AI Productivity Puzzle: Companies Question ROI on Increased Spend — Heardvine