When I was about 15 years old, I saw The Lawnmower Man, a movie about how virtual reality changed the life of a person with an intellectual disability by turning him into a genius. I was amazed by this movie, not because of the promise of virtual reality, but because it just looked super cool. You were immersed in a world where you could fly and play games at a level I’d never seen before, and I thought: “This is what the future is going to be like!” Of course, this was only a movie and virtual reality still had a long, long way to go.

When I was 25, I saw 3D printing, and figured this was going to change the world, where one day we have a real “replicator”, as you see in Star Trek, that could print anything you wanted. Then, when I was 29, I heard about bitcoin and crypto and how this was going to change the financial world forever by removing banks and allowing you to securely send money to anybody on the planet. Oh, yeah, does anybody remember quantum computing, or even more recently, the metaverse from 2022? Working in the IT space, I believe we are more susceptible to the allure of world-changing technology that seems to pop up every few years, with the latest being artificial intelligence.

Over the past year, the number of registered “.ai” domains grew from 75 314 in July 2022 to 196 292 in July 2023, an increase of 161%. In the last 12 months, I’ve personally heard the word “AI” at every single conference from hardware suppliers to cloud providers, market analysts to cybersecurity, from South Africa to Dubai, Barcelona to California. The rate of AI growth in the IT space and the hype around it is the biggest I have ever seen.

In the past people spoke about cloud computing or mobile computing as big shifts, but with AI you have almost every person on the planet talking about it, not just the IT crowd — this is the first stand-out feature. Another stand-out stat is an NBC News analysis of earnings calls of companies in the S&P 500, showing that the word “AI” mentioned in earning calls has skyrocketed since ChatGPT entered the global stage in November 2022.

This is not going to stop: more and more companies are transforming their businesses to be more integrated with technology than ever before. I am sure many of you have heard statements like, “We are not a medical company, we are an IT company that provides medical services”, or new, popular acronyms companies are using like FinOps and RevOps. The AI hype train is only going to add fuel to this fire.

‘Look at the past’

But to date, I haven’t seen any real-world business problems being solved by AI. With all this talk about artists being replaced by Midjourney, ChatGPT passing the bar exam and AI video-editing replacing all actors, the reality is that technology is still in its infancy. Yes, ChatGPT can help you write an article faster, but it still requires a human with a strong understanding of the topic to quality-check it. Albert Einstein famously said: “If you want to know the future, look at the past.” And the past shows us that the promise of these technologies may be incredible, but they take far longer to implement into our way of life if they are to make a real difference. That said, it doesn’t mean we should idly sit by and wait. Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10 000 hours to master something, and those who start working with AI now will be the masters of our IT universe in the future.

What I say next might sound rather obvious, but it’s simple and it works. Start playing with AI today, in all aspects of your business, one step at a time. In the beginning, it’s going to feel difficult, cumbersome and almost counterintuitive, but like running a marathon, you have to start by finishing your first 1km race and building from that.

The other point is based on what Abraham Lincoln said: “Progress is not made by leaps and bounds but by inches and feet.” Progress is slow, regardless of the hype, but it is still progress. If many S&P 500 are mentioning it in their earnings calls, it means they are going to do something with it. What that something is, we don’t know, and I am pretty sure they don’t even fully know. What we do know is that AI will be part of our lives whether we like it or not, from cars, fridges, TVs and phones, to perhaps even our lawnmowers. Go and play with it.