Illustration of a storm in a glass of water. — Storm in a glass of water. Image by MidJourney, prompt by the author.

Listening to history, when will AI deliver unrivaled value?

25 years ago (October 9th 2000) the NASDAQ index bottomed out at 1139, just 22% of it’s value seven months prior. The reason was: technology myopia. We had over-hyped ‘the internet’, and could only see it as a glittering lure (1). We’d rather join the gold rush than admit its real value (or lack of ..).

3 min readSep 29, 2025

History rhymes, and today it’s seems more important to be distracted by AI (the technology) than keep working on the real and present opportunities in front of us.

When looking back will 2025 represent a lost year of effectiveness? Will we see us wasting it on discussing a technology hype in its infancy before it produced any real value (only valid threats) ..?

I’m not suggesting to not keep an eye on the tech.bro oligarchy (2) .. our modern day robber barons (3) or the threat of digital serfdom (4).

But we should know by now that to date AI is not really that impactful (5)(6). In 2025 it’s still only a storm in a glass of water. And it’s not until we get back to our real opportunities we will achieve progress (7).

What’s most likely to happen?

History suggests that AI, as the Internet, will “crash” (8)(9), then become ubiquitous (found everywhere) and produce real value. Far greater than the trinkets we are playing with today.

But ubiquitous also means that it disappears, it’s not the focus of our attention anymore, it’s an underlying enabler (the ‘infrastructure’ (8)) of new opportunities.

And that’s the key insight: focus on the “real opportunities”.

Because we won’t get back to those as long as we only have our AI sunglasses on.

Customer Experience is a good example. Companies are pouring millions into new technology and more data, at the same time customers are increasingly unhappy (10)(11)(12). Technology on its own doesn’t do much good especially if it takes the oxygen away from understanding the real opportunity.

Discussing technology without knowing where or why is like moving our armies around without knowing what the landscape looks like or where the enemy is. It’s a random futile waste of resources. Much of the current AI hype is the just that.

Illustration of strategy with and without the underlying map. — Illustration of the need for a map when setting strategy,

AI, as electricity and the internet before it only becomes significant once it becomes infrastructure. When it does the people who spent their time focusing on the opportunities will be ahead, while the ones who focused on the technology will be left far behind.