The biggest mistake we can make about AI is confusing more software with better software, or assuming that what’s in place today can be made better by simply adding AI. I have watched companies race to attach an AI label to products that have barely changed, as if the right acronym can transform an ordinary feature into a revolution. Some of this technology is extraordinary.
Some of it is simply old software wearing a new badge, and the difference will have enormous consequences for the businesses, workers, and communities living through this transition. Systems that are at best clunky, and at worst, outright dangerous. The hysteria around AI replacing everyone is beginning to fade, but the underlying transformation has only started.
Nearly nine in 10 respondents to McKinsey’s 2026 global survey said their organizations regularly used AI in at least one business function, while 44 percent said AI was being scaled across the enterprise. The market is moving toward a more uncomfortable stage of the cycle, where excitement has to survive contact with budgets and measurable results. This is exactly where the conversation needs to go.
AI should make people more capable. Good technology scales humans. Everything else is for decoration.
Consider what this could mean outside the technology industry. A small business could gain capabilities that once required an entire department. An adviser could serve thousands of clients while retaining the judgment and relationship only a person can provide.
AI-assisted drug discovery is already producing tangible results. One recent milestone was a randomized phase 2a trial of rentosertib, a treatment whose biological target and molecule were identified using AI. The opportunity is enormous, which makes the current wave of AI marketing more than an annoyance.
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