The week in brief — AI rarely fails on the technology

Three lessons converged this week. One: Klarna over-automated its customer service and had to bring humans back — a relationship doesn't automate like a task. Two: Gartner expects more than 40% of agentic AI projects to be scrapped by the end of 2027, for reasons of unclear value and governance, not technology. Three: the companies that succeed concentrate their resources on a few use cases rather than spreading thin.

The common thread: what makes an AI project fail is rarely the model — it's framing, adoption and measurement. Choose few, add guardrails, and measure value.

Source: Klarna (May 2025); Gartner (June 2025); BCG, AI Radar (January 2025).