Wherever you look online, there are sites, services, and apps proclaiming their use of AI makes it the best option. I don’t know about you, but it’s constant presence has become tiring.
So, while AI is certainly here to stay in our everyday lives, several signs suggest that we’ve already reached peak AI hype.
1 Limited Interest From the General Public
While AI has received much attention in tech circles, it’s important to remember that we live within a bubble in our niche groups. Just because we find something cool and game-changing doesn’t mean that normal people will. In my opinion, AI is very much one of the topics that fall within this category.
When I speak to ordinary people about AI, they know about ChatGPT but not much else. Most of the time, people who are really interested in AI features already have a previous interest in tech. This is the exact same reason why I think Mastodon won’t replace X (Twitter); it doesn’t have mass appeal.
In addition to not being interested, many people are still skeptical of AI. For example, according to November 2023 research by Pew, 52% of US participants said they were more concerned than excited about AI (up from 37% in 2021). Moreover, only 10% said they were more excited than concerned (down from 18% in 2021).
I’ve received heaps of messages from people telling me to try out their AI tools over the past two years. And I’ll just be totally honest with you right now: the overwhelming majority of those messages end up in my trash folder. There are some amazing AI tools out there (e.g. ChatGPT and Grammarly), but the simple truth is that most AI tools are not very good.
A significant number of new AI tools that I’ve seen don’t offer anything different from what’s already out there. I believe that this is for multiple reasons. Firstly, many AI tools released since 2022 have been rushed onto the market. I can understand this, and I do believe in having a minimum viable product. But if it doesn’t work, then it frankly doesn’t work—no matter how many buzzwords you add to your product page.
Many AI tools have also been neglected of updates, resulting in them naturally worsening. Once again, I reiterate my number one business rule: Make something good people want and not just whatever is trendy.
3 Many AI Integrations Are Effectively Gimmicks
In addition to the several new AI apps and programs that aren’t very good, many established brands have also rushed to create AI-powered features. Again, I completely understand this from a business perspective, but I don’t see how adding lots of tools for the sake of it improves your product (and I think a lot of other people currently feel the same way).
I’ve written a comprehensive article about how every piece of creative software now has AI, but few actually need it. However, other industries have fallen into the same trap. While automation and some corrective tools are fantastic additions, I question the necessity of sky replacement features. They’re good for fun, I guess, but they absolutely aren’t needed.
The last thing anyone wants is clunky interfaces with lots of stuff that means nothing, and I do believe that many companies will realize this. Once the AI hype dies down a bit, I think that many businesses will start to be more selective with what they add.
4 “AI-Powered” Doesn’t Carry the Same Weight That it Used To
For most of 2023 and the first part of 2024, I noticed a lot of businesses using “AI-powered” wherever they could. However, I don’t think this term carries the same weight that it used to.
The reason is quite simple. Most people don’t care about what the product they’re using is powered by. They care that it does the job it promises. Naturally, AI will occasionally form part of this equation (e.g., summarizing meeting notes), but it sometimes won’t.
I would definitely argue that the term has more weight in B2B settings, but not so much when talking about consumers. Some folks might even be worried about too much AI in video games and other things that they use.
5 People Have AI Fatigue
More people being concerned about AI is one thing, but I think that many people are also just tired of hearing about it. Ever since late 2022, a lot of tech-related news that has gone mainstream has related to AI. Over time, that will naturally wear some people down—even if they have an interest in tech.
People are just fatigued by the amount of information they’re bombarded with daily. Our brains weren’t supposed to process everything that goes on in the world, and even enough news on one topic can be exhausting.
In the same way that people have grown tired of hearing about other big topics in the past, I think we’re also going to see many more individuals grow tired of hearing about AI all the time. Many people are definitely fed up seeing AI art, at the very least. All of this is a pretty clear sign that we’re past peak AI (at least in terms of hype).
When the AI craze started, everyone talked about how these tools were an all-in-one solution to replace anything and everything. But as time has progressed, more people have realized that using AI effectively is much more difficult than it looks.
Generative AI is one very good example of this. Prompting is more difficult than you might think, and even creating images with AI can cause headaches. AI prompting is a skill in and of itself, and many people won’t be willing to put in the time to perfect it.
I also think that you really should have some skill in the thing you’re doing before incorporating AI. For example, I’ve spoken to friends of mine in music who can tell very quickly when a song is AI-generated. Similarly, as a photographer, I know when a picture has been made with AI. You should use AI to complement what you’re already doing if you want to get the most out of it rather than trying to replace it altogether.
7 No New Real AI Models
Another sign that we’ve reached peak AI is the lack of new AI models. I’m not talking about Gemini and GPT-5; I’m speaking about other potential alternatives.
Many of the biggest tech companies started developing their AI models around the launch of ChatGPT. Since then, though, things have been much quieter. Apple Intelligence is perhaps one exception. Nonetheless, the fact that things are quieter suggests that we might be past peak AI.
AI is a fantastic tool when used correctly, but the initial hype from late 2022 onward looks like it’s on a downward curve. Many people are experiencing AI fatigue, and if they aren’t yet, you can expect them to in the future. Moreover, most AI tools simply aren’t good enough to make a dent. While AI will remain present in our lives, we’ll start looking at it more rationally now that its novelty is wearing off.
