AI as normal tech
A reality check
⚠️ We're not in an "AI revolution" - we're in the messy middle of normal tech adoption: AI as normal technology.
Think electricity. It took DECADES to transform industries, not because the tech was bad, but because businesses had to completely rewire how they work.
The real challenge isn't getting AI to pass tests in labs (hello, GPT-5 acing bar exams). It's the "capability-reliability gap" - when your AI is 95% accurate but that 5% failure rate could sink your business.
Just like factories didn't get productive from electricity until they redesigned their entire production lines, AI only pays off when you fundamentally change your processes. That's years of work, not a quick software purchase.
So if you're a business leader asking "which AI should we buy?" - wrong question. Ask instead: "how do we build an organization ready for a decade of gradual AI integration?"
The winners won't be first-movers buying the latest models. They'll be teams that master the "last mile" - actually embedding AI into specific workflows while training humans to supervise and validate the results.
Your AI budget? Split it 50/50 between the tech and the harder stuff: retraining people, redesigning processes, building oversight systems.
Start small: Pick one low-risk process, map out what human-AI collaboration actually looks like, and measure your learning, not just ROI.
The AI transformation is real - it's just going to be a lot more boring and take way longer than the headlines suggest. 🤷