In big companies there is always waste, it's just not possible to be super efficient when you have tens of thousands of people. It's one thing in a steady state, low-competition business where you can refine and optimize processes so everyone knows exactly what their job is, but that is generally not the environment that software companies operate in. They need to be able innovate and stay competitive, never moreso than today.

The thing with AI is that it ranges from net-negative to easily brute forcing tedious things that we never have considered wasting human time on. We can't figure out where the leverage is unless all the subject matter experts in their various organizational niches really check their assumptions and get creative about experimenting and just trying different things that may never have crossed their mind before. Obviously over time best practices will emerge and get socialized, but with the rate that AI has been improving lately, it makes a lot of sense to just give employees carte blanche to explore. Soon enough there will be more scrutiny and optimization, but that doesn't really make sense without a better understanding of what is possible.