Of AI and Martinis
There’s an old saying that goes, “One martini is good. Two might be better. Three and you're face-down on the floor, wondering what hit you.”
That's AI right now. And many leaders are already on their third drink.
Intoxication
The promise has been irresistible: efficiency gains, headcount reductions, fatter margins. Companies, big and small, are pouring capital into AI with the enthusiasm of someone who has just discovered leverage. The FOMO is real, the pressure is real, and the spreadsheets full of optimistic projections are very, very real. What's harder to find are the honest conversations about what's actually happening on the ground.
It all feels familiar. Remember the dot-com era? Internet access went from a privilege held by a few to something everyone had, practically overnight. The promise was transformation. The reality, at least for a while, was people surfing the web and wasting time. Capital was burned. Startups sprang up as fast as bunnies. Then the bubble popped, and a couple of years later, it bounced back, this time with useful products and less junk.
We called it junk back then. Today we call it slop, and everyone assures us it's different this time.
The Aftermath
Maybe. But AI slop is already showing up in some embarrassing places. Researchers have tracked an estimated 712 legal decisions worldwide involving AI-hallucinated content in court filings, with roughly 90% of those decisions issued in 2025 alone. Lawyers are submitting briefs citing cases that do not exist. In one particularly uncomfortable instance, a federal judge admitted he almost included fabricated AI citations in an official court order, writing that AI use had "affirmatively misled" him. These aren't interns making rookie mistakes. These are credentialed professionals in high-stakes settings. If AI slop is penetrating the legal system, it's penetrating your business too, and you may not know it yet.
Back to those leaders who didn't wait for the technology to catch up to the vision. Some eliminated positions ahead of the promised efficiencies, betting AI would fill the gap. It didn't. Klarna replaced 700 employees with AI, watched quality decline and customers revolt, and had to rehire humans to fix what the bots broke. That's not a one-off cautionary tale; it's a pattern. According to the workforce development firm Careerminds, roughly a third of companies that conducted AI layoffs had to rehire 25-50% of the roles they cut. Another 35.6% rehired more than half, including 1 in 3 employers who spent more on restaffing than they ever saved from the layoffs.
They fired people to save money, then spent more money to bring them back, and destroyed institutional knowledge and morale in the process. Somewhere, a CFO is staring at a spreadsheet, wondering how this happened.
Belly Up to the Bar?
So does it pay to move first, or is it smarter to watch others crash and learn from the wreckage? The data is interesting. Research shows that fast followers achieve superior long-term profitability in 42% of markets, compared with 37% for first movers. First-mover companies fail 47% of the time and capture an average market share of just 10%, while early followers achieve 28% market share with failure rates closer to 8%. A 2026 study on the pace of AI adoption found an inverted U-shaped relationship between the speed at which firms adopt AI and the competitive advantages they capture. Move too slowly, and you're irrelevant; move too fast, and you've burned capital on assumptions that turned out to be wrong.
The fast follower's real advantage isn't speed. It's information. They can see which assumptions turned out to be wrong and build around them, while first movers are still locked into costly mistakes.
The sweet spot is not being first. It's being smart.
The more balanced path, the one leaders often skip because it sounds boring compared to "going all in," is finding product/market fit before stepping on the gas. Pilot AI in focused, measurable ways. Track actual ROI, not projected ROI. And have someone in the building whose job is to ask the uncomfortable question: is this working, or are we just busy?
What we need more of are good AI product managers. People who can distinguish genuine productivity gains from expensive experiments dressed up in optimistic slides. People who will tell the CEO that the promised savings aren't there yet, before the company has already bet the house.
The technology is real. The potential is real. But so is the bill.
Where does your organization stand, learning smartly or spending fast?
Angelo Santinelli is the founder of Entrepreneurial Edge Executive Coaching and Advising and a strategic advisor to PE-backed and founder-led companies. He works with CEOs and executive teams on strategic execution, leadership development, and organizational performance.
Sources
Bloomberg Law, "AI-Faked Cases Become Core Issue Irritating Overworked Judges," December 29, 2025. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/legal-ops-and-tech/ai-faked-cases-become-core-issue-irritating-overworked-judges
Ars Technica / Harvard Law, "Judge admits nearly being persuaded by AI hallucinations in court filing," May 2025. https://tagteam.harvard.edu/hub_feeds/3382/feed_items/13802128
HR Executive, "The AI layoff trap: Why half will be quietly rehired," December 19, 2025. https://hrexecutive.com/the-ai-layoff-trap-why-half-will-be-quietly-rehired/
Washington Times, "Companies rehire workers after AI replacements fail," March 10, 2026. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/10/ai-layoff-reversal-companies-rehire-customer-roles-eliminated/
[5] ITONICS Innovation, "First-Mover Advantage: Winning the Time-to-Market Race," January 15, 2026. https://www.itonics-innovation.com/blog/first-mover-advantage
[6] Foreign Economics & Management, "'First-mover' or 'Fast-follower'? The Pace of AI Adoption by Firms and Competitive Advantages," January 2026. https://qks.sufe.edu.cn/J/WJGL/Article/Details/A0Zyhjrx5P-1XBm-0X1e-EuBX-e6L6Ejg27aGY
[7] Innovation Vista, "Better to Be the 1st or 2nd AI Mover in Your Sector?" April 1, 2026. https://innovationvista.com/ai/1st-or-2nd-mover/
