Technology 6 min read By Callum Montgomery
Amy Webb warns Fortune 500 firms suffer AI 'learned helplessness'
Futurist Amy Webb told the Fortune AIQ Summit that large companies are late to AI, spending without strategy and developing a dangerous dependency on tools they do not understand, while Runway's COO described a contrasting approach.
Large companies are approaching artificial intelligence with a dangerous mix of late adoption, unstructured spending and growing dependency, according to futurist Amy Webb. Speaking at the Fortune AIQ Summit, Webb said Fortune 500 firms are «pretty late to the party» on AI and are suffering from a form of «learned helplessness» similar to taxi drivers who can no longer navigate without a digital map.
Webb, founder and CEO of consulting firm Future Today Strategy Group, argued that artificial intelligence did not simply appear a couple of years ago, yet many major corporations are still treating it as a sudden disruption rather than a long-developing technology. She described «enormous amounts of capital» flowing into pilot projects «with no strategy ahead of them», leading to internal conflicts with security teams and orphaned initiatives that never deliver value.
The result, she said, is that some executives hand the building of what should become proprietary technology to third parties, then find themselves stuck. Frustrated employees begin building their own tools independently, creating shadow systems that may bypass corporate controls. Webb compared the situation to being in a New York City taxi and being handed a phone to type in an address — a pattern she estimates has persisted for about two years. Drivers have become so reliant on navigation tools that a «certain amount of learned helplessness» has set in, mirroring the behaviour of some business leaders.
Her advice was not for companies to aim to be «AI native» but to be flexible, with mechanisms built in to support that flexibility. She said she has not yet seen large companies do so, even though many chief executives are working hard to understand AI.
Part of the problem, Webb argued, is how firms define return on investment. Most apply AI directly to the bottom line, which can obscure broader productivity gains. She contrasted that with Runway, an AI video company whose strategy she considers a clear vision for the future that its tools help advance.
Webb relayed a story about a friend at a large company who, when the chief technology officer refused to approve a secure sandbox, went directly to the CEO, built his own instance, gained access to a supercomputer and assembled a team. That group now plans to spend a couple hundred million dollars on AI tokens. Webb blamed a lack of «strong leadership and planning», saying many companies lead with «fear and FOMO».
Michelle Kwon, Runway's chief operating officer, described a company built in the opposite way. Founded about nine years ago by three New York University graduates, Runway uses AI in «essentially every part of what we do», and its whole staff writes code. Employees have built about 215 apps for an internal app store since earlier this year, including teams outside engineering. The company's newest product, an autonomous ad agent announced the day before the panel, came from that approach. One worker built it in a handful of weeks, Kwon said, raising ad output by more than 1,000% from a very small base. It is now being released publicly.
Runway still buys what is not central to its business, such as payment systems or HR compliance software. On productivity, Kwon warned: «Just because you are using AI, that is not a proxy for your productivity or you doing a good job at work.» It should be a core part of how people work, she added, as long as it is responsible and does not create work for others. She criticised the habit of copying and pasting chatbot output without synthesis, saying it «isn't a productive use of anyone's time».
Francis Shanahan, chief technology officer at Peloton, offered a counterpoint from the audience: employees are «inundated now because they can literally build anything», and he is finding burnout to be an increasingly serious issue. Kwon responded that Runway makes a point to celebrate wins and give the whole company the same day off, not tied to a holiday, to avoid tracking complications.
On risk and liability, Matt Maher of M7 Innovations asked who is liable when an AI agent breaches a contract or causes harm. Webb recounted a coding project of her own that spammed 1,000 people after a loop error in a live environment. Such failures, she said, are ordinary human errors, not AI «waking up». Executives must «stop anthropomorphizing» AI, she added, and security officers should say «tell me more» before saying no. She also warned that a wave of connected devices, such as listening glasses and charms, will arrive over the next 18 months with little planning.
Asked about boards using AI, Webb said her firm has used it for a decade, but it is useless if directors do not understand what the data show. She compared it to her own cycling sensors: «You can't disassociate from what's happening, or you are liable.»
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