AI Money Wasted on Dumb Tasks, Says Apollo's Zito

Here's the uncomfortable truth: too many companies are deploying AI like it's holy water, throwing millions at solving problems that literally don't need it. Zito's basically saying what everyone whispers in the hallway — you're overpowered for the job you're trying to do.

The economics are brutal. A company spinning up advanced AI models to classify emails or auto-generate template responses is torching cash. Not because the AI doesn't work, but because simpler solutions have existed for years. Old-school algorithms, automation rules, basic logic. Boring stuff that actually gets the job done without the overhead.

What's really happening is confusion between "new" and "better." AI is shiny. It attracts investor dollars. It looks fantastic on pitch decks. But when the actual complexity of the task is low — when you're basically doing something a regular database query could handle — your ROI becomes a punchline. You're buying a Ferrari to go to the grocery store.

There's also the energy angle, which nobody wants to talk about. These models consume a ridiculous amount of electricity. Running them on trivial tasks isn't just economically wasteful — it's ecologically questionable too. We're burning megawatts of power to solve problems that a simple script solved in milliseconds a decade ago.

What makes Zito's take interesting is that he's not anti-AI. He's pro-smart-spending. AI should be reserved for tasks where that raw power actually matters: complex predictions, finding patterns in massive datasets, scenarios where an intelligent solution is measurably, significantly better than the classical approach. Everything else? Save your money, save your energy, use a simpler tool.