"AI-first" is the new Return To Office

Mandated AI vs Organic Tool Adoption

• Many argue that truly valuable tools (smartphones, source control, internet, Kubernetes, cloud) spread bottom‑up; if usage has to be mandated and tracked in reviews, that’s a red flag about actual utility.
• Others counter that lots of now‑standard practices (version control, bug trackers, tests, internet use) did face resistance and sometimes needed firm pushes, especially for people set in their ways.
• Several draw a line between leadership mandating what outcomes (APIs, internet, mobile) vs prescribing how (you must use AI, this editor, this workflow).

Effectiveness and Limits of AI Tools

• Experiences are polarized: some find LLMs and tools like Copilot/Cursor transformative for speed, boilerplate, and admin work; others report they struggle even with trivial coding tasks and debugging.
• Senior developers say AI is useful because they can quickly judge and fix bad output; they worry juniors will accept “seems to work” code and ship brittle systems.
• There’s debate over whether AI mainly helps below‑average performers or also amplifies experts; both views appear.
• A vivid example: leadership spends 90+ minutes trying to debug via AI; a UI engineer then fixes it with a one‑character change in minutes, yet this is still framed internally as an “AI success.”

Top-Down Strategy, Culture, and Groupthink

• Some see “AI‑first” as CEOs performing for peers and chasing buzzwords, similar to RTO or past “Facebook-for-business” intranet fads that were briefly tied to performance reviews, then died.
• Others defend AI‑first memos as rational attempts not to miss a paradigm shift (like past “internet-first” or strategic pivots), arguing that without clear top‑down direction most organizations won’t experiment seriously.
• Making AI usage a review line item is viewed by critics as weak management that incentivizes box‑ticking and resentment; defenders describe lighter implementations as mere nudges to overcome activation energy.

Comparisons to Fads and Past Waves

• “AI‑first” is repeatedly likened to “blockchain‑first,” “metaverse,” and internal social networks: solutions seeking problems, driven by executive groupthink.
• At the same time, several note that unlike those fads, current AI clearly has some real value, which paradoxically makes hype‑driven misuse and opportunity cost more dangerous.

Impact Beyond Tech and on Workers

• Non‑tech examples suggest LLMs already let non‑programmers build narrow, bespoke tools and automate office tasks once only a developer could handle.
• Others warn this repeats low‑code history: easy to dig into a hole of unmaintainable, brittle automations, widening the gap between people who truly understand systems and those who don’t.
• Some see AI‑first plus RTO as parallel tools of control and “soft firing,” or as a new version of making workers train their own cheaper replacements.