AI is everything... and nothing

It's rare that a technology arrives with this much excitement, concern, investment and noise, plus the added fear that you honestly don't know if what's in front of you was created by a human or not.

According to some people, AI has changed everything.

According to others, it's the latest in a long line of tech trends destined to fade into the background. After all, we were also told NFTs would change everything. And the Metaverse. Remember that?

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

AI is undeniably useful. It helps people write better, analyse faster, create more, and automate tasks that used to consume hours of their day. For people with less experience, it can unlock capabilities they never had before.

For experts, it can do something even more valuable: give them more time to focus on the things that matter.

Which raises an interesting question.

If AI is making people more productive, is AI really the threat? Or is it simply the latest tool being dropped into a world that was already obsessed with efficiency, automation and doing more with less?

In communications and marketing, AI won't magically replace expertise. Knowing your audience, understanding context, building trust and making good decisions still matters.

Tools change, fundamentals don't

So that's why AI feels both incredibly important and slightly overhyped at the same time. It may genuinely define the next decade. Or it may become just another piece of technology we stop talking about because it becomes normal.

Much like the internet itself.

One final thought.

As you've been reading this article, were you wondering whether AI helped write it?

Because that's becoming the new challenge. Not whether AI can write blogs, but whether anybody can tell the difference.

For the record, AI definitely did not get involved with this one.

At least, that's exactly what an AI would say. Some hyper- links? While thinking about all this, I found myself revisiting a very trippy textbook I studied at university by Marshall McLuhan - The medium is the massage (Sic) , I then re-listened to Kraftwerk's The Man Machine, and Adam Buxton's brilliant 2017 podcast with Brian Eno and finally watched a documentary on the surprisingly misunderstood history of the Luddites,

None of these things explained AI, but I hope you find the links useful.