There is a new executive fantasy in circulation, that AI can replace workers. Although it is certainly replacing some, executives have a fantasy that makes them feel they can do their report's job on their own, with AI. That they can code! Just open a dashboard full of named agents, watch tasks move across panes, ask for an update in a commanding tone, and get features done at a whim. It feels like a dream, specially when you run your "think big ideas" through it and the AI tells you that you're amazing. There is even a term for it now, AI psychosis1.
That is why a lot of executive AI enthusiasm currently looks delusional from the outside. Not because the tools do nothing. Not because no one gets value from them. The higher you are in an org chart, the more removed from the actual work and the details. The details that the users like. The details the AI hallucinates and erodes away from your product in an effort to bring it closer to the average it was trained on.
The sycophancy problem makes this worse. Current models are often too eager to sound smooth, helpful, and affirming, because they are trained on that kind of feedback. Was the user happy? Great, then learn from whatever you did in that conversation Put that in the hands of a powerful person who already lives at a distance from contradiction and you get a nasty loop where your employees may try to tell you that your idea is not good, but AI keeps telling you how amazing it is and how it's the right thing to do.
AI is to be thought as a eager-to-please-wikipedia-addict-intern-on-coke and be led by an actual expert. You wouldn't lead an intern in doing an open heart surgery now would you? Then don't get the impression that you can control AI in doing so.
And several studies, such as this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12805049/ that are compiling information about people losing their minds with the addictive feedback loop that makes you feel smart and understood.