The conversation is louder than the reality

If you only listened to the public conversation about AI, you’d think two things are true at once.

First, that AI will replace almost everything you do tomorrow. Second, that AI is a parlour trick that doesn’t really understand anything.

Neither version is quite right. And both make it harder to make sensible decisions about your product.

What you actually need is a working model — a clear sense of where modern AI is useful, where it isn’t, and what to assume by default. You don’t need to be an AI expert. You just need to know enough to make good choices.

Let’s walk through what it can do, what it can’t, and what that means for you.

What AI is good at

Most of what people call “AI” today refers to large language models and similar systems. They’re...

What AI can and can’t do (without the hype)