When artificial intelligence became the biggest buzzword in tech, companies hoped it would help them slash headcount and save money. Instead, companies that rushed to replace staff with AI are now rehiring humans to fix its mistakes - and spending a fortune in the process.

According to a BBC report, there is a burgeoning industry for software engineers and writers who are being hired to fix the mistakes made by AI.

The trouble with AI
Take the example of Sarah Skidd. When a content agency reached out to Sarah Skidd in May, they were in a bind. The website copy they had commissioned from a generative AI tool for a hospitality client wasn’t up to the mark and they needed it rewritten urgently.

"It was the kind of copy that you typically see in AI copy - just very basic; it wasn't interesting," Skidd explained. "It was supposed to sell and intrigue but instead it was very vanilla."

Skidd, a product marketing manager in Arizona who writes for tech and start-up companies, took 20 hours to rewrite the copy from scratch. At her usual rate of $100 an hour, the agency ended up paying $2,000.

Skidd isn't worried about AI replacing her. In fact, it's giving her more business.

"Maybe I'm being naive, but I think if you are very good, you won't have trouble," she told BBC.

The rise of AI
She's not alone. Many writers she knows are now being hired not to create new content, but to fix the errors AI-generated text leaves behind.

Over the past few years, AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini have become popular in business circles, seen as ways to streamline workflows and cut down costs. A recent survey by the UK’s Federation of Small Businesses found that 35% of small firms plan to expand their AI use within two years.

But Skidd’s experience, and those of others like her, suggests that there may still be a long way to go before AI can match up to human standards.

Sophie Warner, co-owner of Hampshire-based digital marketing agency Create Designs, says that in the last six to eight months, there has been an increase in the number of clients who want to fix the mess created by AI.

"Before clients would message us if they were having issues with their site or wanted to introduce new functionality," Warner told BBC. "Now they are going to ChatGPT first."

But adding code generated by ChatGPT has made some websites prone to crashing and vulnerable to attacks.

In one case, a client asked ChatGPT how to update their event page - something Warner says would have taken just 15 minutes manually. But instead, the AI-generated code caused their website to crash, costing the business three days of downtime and about 360 Pounds in recovery costs.

"We often have to charge an investigation fee to find out what has gone wrong, as they don't want to admit it, and the process of correcting these mistakes takes much longer than if professionals had been consulted from the beginning," said Warner.