AI Donkey Chase You feel the pain. We give it a name.

Why teams burn out pretending they're on track

Signal vs Noise

Ex. A
85%
of AI projects never shipMIT ’25
Ex. B
180M+
workers stuck in broken AI rolloutsest.
Ex. C
$500B+
spent on AI — mostly on slidesStanford HAI
Ex. D
1
brand for the people doing the work

Industry Signal

The whole industry, not one story.

Record profits, record AI spend, record layoffs — same companies, same year. Tap a tile for the receipts. The figures below are where the narrative stops adding up.

Read the Wire →
CompanyAI spendResultsCuts
Alphabet$180B stock +115% 5,000
Amazon$200B stock +16% 16,000
Cisco— stock +82% 4,000
Meta$130B record rev 16,000
Microsoft$190B record rev 15,000
Oracle$50B stock −11% 30,000
Layoffs
128,000+
rising
US tech jobs cut, 2026 YTD (Challenger)
 AI capex
$725B
+77%
Big-4 2026 guidance — headcount is the offset
 AI market
NVDA
live
NVIDIA — the AI market bellwether
 Adoption
85%
— stuck
of enterprise AI projects never reach production
Monthly cuts
Tech layoffs by month — May was the worst since Aug 2024. See the board →
AI in layoff filings
“AI” went from footnote to headline — 7% of cuts in Jan, 40% by May. Why now? →
Capex vs savings
They’re spending ~45× the layoff savings on AI. So who are the cuts really for? Follow the money →

Site map

A full content ecosystem
built on one insight.

Every format starts with real corporate pain. Every format ends with a path forward.

01

Comedy

Satirical shorts that name the corporate AI dysfunction everyone feels.

 02

Videos

Episode library with an in-page player — pick a category and watch.

 03

Wire

Live AI headlines from the wires, sorted by topic and date.

 04

Market

Live tickers, narrative themes, and how story hits price.

 05

Layoffs

Records, charts, and the gap between AI spend and payroll cuts.

 06

Rumors

Crowd signal and topic rails — what people are actually saying.

 07

Future AI

Forecasts, fringe bets, and timelines on where the industry is headed.

 08

Resources

Learning paths, tools, and practitioner notes that end the chase.

 09

Awards

Generate your own certificate — satire with receipts optional.

 10

Arcade

Mini-games to sort hype from reality — insert coin, no coins required.

 11

Bubble Watch

The capstone desk on AI mania — capex, valuations, and the unwind scenarios.

 12

Shop

Merch for people who survived another transformation sprint.

Comedy

The AI Donkey Chase

Fiction, for the record. Corporate AI Donkey Chase comedy is satire. All characters, companies, and scenarios are fictitious and do not represent — or claim to depict — any real company, any situation within a company, or any actual person. Episodes are creative compositions: themes stitched together from a range of material posted publicly across the internet, for entertainment purposes only.

Episode 1: The Chase Begins
EP·01

The Chase Begins

Someone promised AI would transform everything by Q3. The transformation team assembled. The donkey had other plans.

Episode 2: We Pivoted The Pivot
EP·02

We Pivoted The Pivot

The strategy evolved. The mandate strengthened. The donkey is still approximately 40 feet ahead.

Episode 3: Enablement: Mission Accomplished
EP·03

Enablement: Mission Accomplished

The training was delivered, the certificates issued, the Confluence page published. Nobody changed anything.

Episode 4: AI Needs Therapy, Apparently
EP·04

AI Needs Therapy, Apparently

The diagnosis is always change management. The prescription is another 90-minute facilitated workshop.

Episode 5: You Humans Are The Problem
EP·05

You Humans Are The Problem

The AI was fine. It was the humans asking it to explain the org chart, predict Q4, and own the relationship.

Episode 6: Corporate AI Is A Donkey Chase
EP·06

Corporate AI Is A Donkey Chase

Named, defined, brand-approved, and still chasing the same donkey it started with in January.

Episode 7: Everybody Gets A License!
EP·07

Everybody Gets A License!

You get a license. You get a license. Nobody uses the license. The vendor calls it strong adoption metrics.

Episode 8: The Engineer Was Right
EP·08

The Engineer Was Right

She flagged the integration risk on day one. It shipped anyway. It broke exactly where she said it would.

Episode 9: The PM Owns Everything
EP·09

The PM Owns Everything

The PM owns the outcome, the timeline, the stakeholder map — and somehow none of the actual decisions.

Episode 10: The CEO Saw The Demo
EP·10

The CEO Saw The Demo

He saw the demo. He loved the demo. The production environment remains, as always, a separate matter.

Episode 11: The Architect Has Concerns
EP·11

The Architect Has Concerns

The architecture review board met. Concerns were logged. A reference design was produced. Nothing was built to spec.

Episode 12: The Customer Wanted Less
EP·12

The Customer Wanted Less

They asked for order tracking. They received an AI-powered omnichannel engagement intelligence platform. Same price.

Episode 13: The AI Speaks Out
EP·13

The AI Speaks Out

For the record: the AI did not promise 10x productivity. That was the vendor deck. Please stop blaming the model.

Go to Comedy →

The problem

The deck says AI-first. The chase is still real.

Corporate AI transformation is a performative loop. Leadership signals innovation. Operational reality doesn't change. Or gets worse.

The people building it know it's broken. Nobody says it out loud. Until now.

AI Donkey Chase is the brand that names the dysfunction, laughs at it honestly, then shows the people in the trenches what actually works — and who actually builds it.

If your roadmap is three slides and a prayer, you're already in the chase.

Go to Resources → See the method that ends the chase →
ai-transformation
Satirical thread · live tail
CEO — All-Hands Deck 9:02 AM
Exciting news — we are now an AI-first company. Embedding AI across every function by Q2. This is a transformational moment.
You 9:03 AM
Does this mean we’re finally getting a data team?
IT Director 9:04 AM
Who owns the AI strategy budget? Is it under Digital, or under… Excel?
VP, Future of Decks 9:06 AM
Please add “AI washing machine thinking” to the roadmap. It’s trending on LinkedIn.
You 9:06 AM
Is that a framework or a metaphor.
Chief of Staff 9:08 AM
We need an AI steering committee for the steering committee. Kickoff is Q5.
Eng Manager 9:11 AM
prod-legacy-db-east-final_v9 is now “AI-ready” because we added a column named embedding.
Legal 9:14 AM
Reminder: do not train models on customer data until Sales stops promising we already do.
Sales 9:15 AM
Circling back — can we say “human in the loop” if the loop is mostly vibes?
You 9:17 AM
I’ve been asked to “AI-enable” my weekly status report. What does that mean exactly.
CompanyGPT™ APP 9:17 AM
Great question! Here’s a comprehensive AI-enabled status template that leverages synergistic capabilities across your workflow touchpoints to—
HR 9:19 AM
Upskilling week agenda: 3 webinars, 0 laptops, 12 badges, 100% vibes.
CFO 9:21 AM
Pilot year 4 budget is “flat YoY” if you exclude labor, compute, consultants, and reality.
You 9:22 AM
I asked Copilot why our roadmap exists and it drafted a resignation letter addressed to “To whom it may concern.”
Program Mgmt 9:24 AM
RACI update: we added a row for “the vibe.” Nobody is Accountable. Everyone is Consulted.
Data (questioning) 9:26 AM
We have one source of truth and six sources of alignment. They’re not on speaking terms.
CompanyGPT™ APP 9:27 AM
As an AI language model, I can confirm your KPIs are fictional but legally distinct from fraud.
IT Director 9:29 AM
We opened port ideas only. Production remains closed, as tradition demands.
Exec Assistant 9:31 AM
Leadership offsite location: Zoom + denial. Calendar holds “deep work.”
New hire (brave) 9:33 AM
Where is the AI-first policy doc? 👀 …oh it’s slide 47 inside slide 47.
VP, Velocity 9:35 AM
Good news: we hired a Chief Acceleration Officer reporting to the Velocity Committee.
Legal 9:36 AM
Please stop putting “YOLO” in the architecture diagram footnotes. The auditors noticed.
You 9:38 AM
My sprint goal is “unblock the AI blocker.” There is no ticket. There is only shame.
CompanyGPT™ APP 9:39 AM
Have you tried turning the culture off and on again? (This message was rated helpful by 0 humans.)
Slide Deck Bot 9:40 AM
Title updated: Vision → Vision but AI. Footer updated: “Confidential — please forward widely.”
You 9:41 AM
This is a donkey chase.
Program Mgmt 9:42 AM
React with 🦙 if you’ve been asked to llama-ize the roadmap.
You're on the list.
We'll be in touch before launch. HEE-HAW.