Laurence Dutton | E+ | Getty Images<\/p>\n
At London-headquartered payments technology company Paysend, access to artificial intelligence tools has to be earned.<\/p>\n
CEO Ben Chisell told CNBC he is a \u201cvery cynical man\u201d about the hype around the technology, though he still sees value in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chisell, who previously worked at Amazon, eBay and Starling Bank, estimates that Paysend can now deliver around 25% more engineering work with the same-sized team, but argues that getting results isn\u2019t as simple as handing everyone the latest tech.<\/p>\n
I know it sounds very unglamorous and unsexy as an approach given the world of tokenmaxxing and AI, but I think it\u2019s really, really important<\/p>\n
Instead, he limits AI tools to his highest-performing employees, often only after they\u2019ve proved what they can do with them. In the wrong hands, he said, AI can magnify bad habits such as laziness and poor judgment.<\/p>\n
His broader rule is to resist the \u201cfear of missing out\u201d and focus on customer problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it sounds very unglamorous and unsexy as an approach given the world of tokenmaxxing and AI, but I think it\u2019s really, really important,\u201d Chisell said.<\/p>\n
Companywide AI rollouts<\/p>\n The pressure to demonstrate AI\u2019s value is growing, from the legal sector<\/a> to software engineering and finance, and many companies are responding by putting the technology in as many hands as possible.<\/p>\n London-based Lloyds Banking Group has rolled out 40,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, with 97% of employees who have one actively using it, the bank said. Newcastle-headquartered software company Sage said its AI coding tools had saved hundreds of thousands of work hours, while London-based professional services firm Grant Thornton UK has encouraged all of its staff to use Anthropic\u2019s Claude as part of a \u00a3500 million ($660 million) investment in AI.<\/p>\n These figures do not necessarily translate into gains on the bottom line, however. U.K. government research<\/a> published in January found that three-quarters of businesses using AI said it had improved workforce productivity, but 77% said revenue had not changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like Chisell, Lokdeep Singh, CEO of British enterprise software company Unily, sees AI as a \u201csuperpower\u201d best reserved for high-performing employees. He is also wary of companies giving it out to everyone as a way to reduce costs.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally believe you should use it to expand your ambition rather than make the team smaller,\u201d he told CNBC. \u201cBut the reality is that in many industries, again, because of the macro environment, it is being thought as: \u2018OK, can I cut costs? Can I cut employees?\u2019 The truth is probably somewhere in between.\u201d<\/p>\n