When OpenAI dropped ChatGPT, the internet collectively lost its mind. The first year was wild. Everyone was experimenting, asking it to write poems about their cat or explain quantum physics like they’re five.
The second year is when things got interesting. Startups sprouted up like mushrooms after rain, and mature companies scrambled to slap “AI-powered” on everything they could get their hands on.
Some out of genuine innovation, others out of what I can only describe as a fucking existential panic.
But we’ve made progress. We’ve gone from ChatGPT churning out painfully obvious “this was written by a robot” drivel to actual AI agents that can hold their own. New LLMs are proving they’re not just hype machines. They’re getting legitimately useful.
But here’s where I need to vent about this current dumpster fire.
Everything Got “AI-Enhanced”
This year, something shifted. All my favorite tools suddenly caught the AI bug. Not in a “hey, we added this cool optional feature” way.
More like a “WE’RE SHOVING THIS DOWN YOUR FUCKING THROAT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT” kind of way.
I was a loyal premium customer with Notion for six years. I was happy to support them, and genuinely excited about their product. Then they went full AI mode.
You know what would’ve made me excited about Notion’s AI? If they’d finished literally any of the features their users had been begging for. A proper offline mode that actually works.
Meaningful updates to the Cron calendar they acquired (including an iPad app), literally anything substantial with Notion Mail. Instead, we got half-baked mobile apps that barely function and a desktop experience cluttered with AI widgets I didn’t want.
It’s like watching someone buy a fixer-upper house, ignore the leaking roof and broken furnace, and instead spend all their money installing a smart toilet that tweets your bathroom habits.
The AI Pivot Nobody Ordered
Here’s what’s been driving me crazy: it feels like every company swallowed the same pill overnight and decided their entire identity should revolve around AI. Products that worked perfectly fine suddenly needed AI integrations to justify price increases or brand new subscription tiers.
I honestly believe there’s been a management AI midlife crisis going on. They wanted to jump onto the AI bandwagon as fast as possible, because everyone is doing it.
Fast forward to now, and we’re seeing the same companies quietly walking back their AI-everything strategies. Turns out that AI can’t replace your entire workforce. Those layoffs that happened because “AI will handle it”?
Yeah, they’re hiring again. Those teams they gutted because ChatGPT would supposedly do their jobs? Turns out us humans were kind of important after all.
The FOMO was real, and expensive. We watched companies fire competent people, invest millions in AI infrastructure, announce bold new AI-driven features… and then quietly realize that AI isn’t the magic wand they thought it was. It’s a powerful tool, but it shouldn’t be your entire business strategy.
Final Thoughts
AI should’ve been a background feature first. So we can get used to AI implementations. A tool that quietly makes your product better without turning into your entire personality.
That’s what AI should’ve been this early of a stage. Instead, we got companies pivoting so hard they gave themselves whiplash, abandoning their core products to chase the AI dragon.
We got tools that used to be reliable becoming cluttered with features that disrupt more than they improve. We got subscription prices creeping up to fund AI development that most users didn’t ask for and don’t want.
I have nothing against AI. Genuinely. I think it’s fascinating technology with incredible potential. I use AI tools myself when they solve a problem.
Companies are so deep in the AI hype sauce that they’ve forgotten what made them special in the first place. They’ve forgotten their DNA.
They’ve traded their identity for a trendy label and a press release that reads like every other press release from every other company desperate to seem relevant.
The sad part? Some startups are genuinely 100% AI-driven, and that’s totally fine. They were built for this. They’re supposed to be AI companies. But when my task manager, my notes app, my calendar, my email client, and my grocery list all become AI companies at the same time? That’s not innovation. That’s trend-chasing.
I don’t want every tool I use to be an AI tool. I want tools that solve my problems.
And sometimes, the solution to my problem isn’t more AI. It’s better execution of the basics. It’s listening to user feedback. It’s building features people actually requested instead of features that look good in a funding pitch.
We’re going to look back at 2023-2024 as the years when everyone lost their minds over AI. The era when every company convinced itself that slapping “AI-powered” on their homepage was the path to infinite growth.
When VCs threw money at anything with “AI” in the pitch deck. When customers were treated like they should be grateful for features they never wanted.
And then we’ll move on. Companies will realize that sustainable business isn’t built on hype cycles. That users know what they want better than your product managers hyped up on AI kool-aid. That sometimes the best feature is the one that just works, reliably, without fanfare.