Box CEO Aaron Levie says tech leaders suffer from 'AI psychosis,' underestimating real work required to deploy AI effectively

Aaron Levie, CEO of content management platform Box, wrote on X that CEOs are 'uniquely prone to AI psychosis' because they are distant from the detailed work needed to generate sustainable AI results, seeing only best-case outcomes while missing bugs, hallucinations, and other issues that workers encounter daily.

A 2025 survey from AI firm Rev found heavy AI users encounter three times the number of hallucinations and spend nearly 10 times longer getting answers. A Gartner study of 350 global executives with annual revenue of at least $1 billion found that 80% of those who piloted AI or autonomous technology reported workforce reductions, regardless of whether the technology was actually generating returns.

Tech companies are still laying off workers despite CEO uncertainty about AI's impact: Wix laid off 1,000 people (20% of its workforce) due in part to AI efficiencies; Meta laid off 10% of its workforce; year-to-date, 49,135 layoffs were attributed to AI according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.