AI: Not quite Déjà Vu All Over Again

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often hailed as revolutionary, poised to reshape industries and redefine human capabilities. However, as with past technological revolutions—the Internet and cloud computing—it’s important to recognize how early we are in this transformation. Moreover, it’s crucial to distinguish between the evolution of AI infrastructure and the maturation of AI applications. While infrastructure lays the foundation, the true potential of AI will only be realized when applications mature to solve real-world problems.

The Historical Parallel: Infrastructure Versus Applications

To understand AI’s current phase, let’s revisit the evolution of earlier transformative technologies:

The Internet Revolution

The Internet is rightly celebrated as a technological milestone, but its development spanned decades before it transformed everyday life. The initial TCP/IP protocol, created in the 1970s, laid the groundwork for digital communication. However, the Internet didn’t become accessible to the general population until the 1990s, when graphical web browsers like Mosaic made the web navigable and visually engaging.

The AI LLMs are like the pipes in your house..

This accessibility spurred the rise of early applications such as email and web portals, but the true transformation came with businesses like Amazon and eBay leveraging the Internet to build e-commerce platforms. These applications—rather than the infrastructure itself—drove mass adoption and demonstrated the Internet’s immense potential.

The Cloud Revolution

Cloud computing followed a similar trajectory. In its early days, infrastructure providers like IBM and Equinix focused on building large data centers. Later, companies like Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), and Google Cloud introduced virtualization technologies that provided scalable storage and computing power. However, large corporations initially hesitated to adopt the cloud, citing concerns about data security, privacy, and compliance. It took years of refinement, regulation, and trust-building before cloud services were embraced at scale.

The true utility of the cloud became evident with the emergence of applications like Salesforce, which revolutionized customer relationship management (CRM). Platforms such as HubSpot and Zendesk showcased how businesses could use the cloud for real-time customer insights, automated workflows, and seamless team collaboration. These applications highlighted the business value of cloud computing, pushing organizations to overcome initial resistance.

AI Today: Building Infrastructure and Early Applications

AI is currently in a similar phase, with infrastructure taking the lead. Companies dominating the AI space—such as OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), and Google (Gemini)—are focused on building large language models (LLMs) and optimizing processing power. These organizations are akin to the telecom providers of the Internet era or the early infrastructure builders of cloud computing.

Early AI applications like ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard are impressive but relatively rudimentary. They serve as proofs of concept, showcasing what’s possible, much like Mosaic browsers did for the Internet or Salesforce did for the cloud. These tools primarily retrofit AI capabilities into existing workflows rather than fundamentally addressing new problems.

The Tipping Point: Moving Beyond Early Applications

The potential of AI lies not in these early tools but in the applications that will emerge in the coming years—applications capable of solving problems we didn’t even realize could be addressed. Current AI products, such as generative text tools and prompt-based systems, are just scratching the surface. Over time, AI will evolve from being a novelty embedded into existing systems to an indispensable solution across industries.

For example:

• Healthcare: AI could progress from assisting with documentation to diagnosing diseases in real time.

• Manufacturing: AI might transition from monitoring processes to autonomously optimizing supply chains.

• Education: Adaptive learning platforms could tailor lessons to individual students based on real-time assessments.

These transformative applications will unlock AI’s full potential and redefine how we live and work.

The Unique Speed of AI Evolution

What sets AI apart from its predecessors is the unprecedented speed of its evolution:

• The Internet: Despite its origins in the 1960s, it took nearly 30 years for the Internet to become accessible to the masses and an additional decade for applications like Amazon and Google to redefine how we use it.

• The Cloud: Similarly, cloud computing took nearly a decade to overcome security concerns and achieve widespread adoption among large organizations. Applications like Salesforce and HubSpot accelerated this trust and adoption.

• AI: In stark contrast, AI is evolving at breakneck speed. ChatGPT, launched in late 2022, has already seen significant advancements, including ChatGPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and a surge of other tools within months. This rapid innovation is fueled by the convergence of cloud infrastructure, massive computational power, and advanced algorithms.

  
  

Conclusion: A Familiar Lifecycle, but a Unique Impact

The lifecycle of AI’s evolution mirrors those of the Internet and cloud computing, but the pace and scale of its potential impact are unparalleled. We are witnessing the simultaneous maturation of both infrastructure and applications, collapsing the timelines of past technological revolutions.

Adoption hinges on the ability of technology to solve real problems—not just on the infrastructure itself. As with plumbing, we don’t install pipes for their own sake but for the water they deliver, enabling us to drink, cook, and clean. Similarly, AI’s value lies in the applications it powers. The infrastructure is critical, but it’s the utility of these applications that will drive adoption and transform lives.

AI’s current phase may feel familiar—early tools showcasing foundational capabilities—but its trajectory promises an extraordinary transformation. As applications evolve to solve problems in profound new ways, AI will redefine industries, reshape economies, and revolutionize how we work and live. The revolution has only just begun, and its potential is boundless.