'95% of AI Pilots Fail': The hidden agenda behind the viral stat that misled millions

You might have heard that '95% of corporate AI pilots' are failing. It was one of the most widely cited AI statistics of 2025, parroted by media outlets everywhere. It helped trigger a Nasdaq selloff and became a pillar of the case that 'AI is overhyped'. The problem: it's 100% wrong. And not by accident either. If you carefully read the underlying report , ostensibly from MIT, you find the data point in the opposite direction. But that was all buried, with the authors instead torturing the results to tell a very different narrative. Why? Well, the research likely came with a hidden commercial agenda from the start. Learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/mit-ai-study Today Rob Wiblin breaks down how an opaque, conflicted, barely-scrutinised report managed to attract the MIT label, move markets and have a vast impact on global opinion about AI. This episode was recorded on February 13, 2026. Chapters: • The myth (00:00) • The math was totally wrong (00:52) • The absurd bar for success (01:46) • The study ignores its own findings (03:29) • The sample was tiny (04:50) • The report wasn’t even available to check (05:55) • The hidden motives that likely drove this 'research' (06:58) • The real lesson (09:28) Video and audio editing: Dominic Armstrong, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour Camera operator: Dominic Armstrong Production: Nick Stockton, Elizabeth Cox, and Katy Moore