A consultant told Axios that the client had handed its workforce AI licenses, set no usage limits and let the meter run until finance noticed. Boards read that as proof that the technology does not work. Most boards cannot see it because they are reading the wrong number: They track failure when the number that matters is allocation. And the pattern predates generative AI: RAND found that more than 80 percent of AI projects fail, roughly twice the rate of comparable work that does not involve AI. Read as a technology story, these numbers say AI does not work.