When will the AI bubble burst?

There was a time… Not that long ago… Not in a galaxy far, far away… When dropping “we’re exploring AI” into a meeting made you sound cutting-edge and very cool indeed. Investors nodded approvingly, marketing teams got giddy and someone inevitably tried to bolt a chatbot onto something that absolutely did not need one.

But fast forward to now and the mood has shifted. AI isn’t some ‘fringe’ technology. It’s everywhere. And now, the question quietly bubbling under the surface of every (probably AI-authored) LinkedIn post is the same. When will the AI bubble burst?

Well. Our take on it is that while AI has gone from niche to mainstream at lightning speed, the reality is a bit more complicated than the ‘hype-cycle’ would have you believe.

Let’s start with the good stuff, because there is plenty of it, let’s be honest. In business, AI pulls its weight and saves us all from horrendously boring jobs that make us question our life choices. For starters, automation is no longer a buzzword, it’s operational. Support tickets get routed instantly, repetitive admin is handled in seconds, reporting is generated without someone wrestling Excel at 10pm (ew, David). Used properly, AI is a powerful tool and lets people focus on work that actually requires a human brain.

But (and it’s a BIG but, and we cannot lie…) there’s a fine line between useful and excessive. And that’s not to mention how expensive it is to run, and funding seems to be dwindling…

AI in business is a brilliant servant but a terrible master

Businesses luuurve efficiency. They always have. So it’s no surprise that AI has been welcomed with open arms, especially in areas like customer service, marketing and internal processes. You can automate outreach, generate content, analyse trends and “personalise” experiences at scale.

So yeah, it’s great in theory. But in practice? We’re definitely at risk of sliding into overkill.

Marketing is a prime offender, for example. Feeds are flooded with AI-generated posts, emails that all sound vaguely the same and content that feels… a little off? Not wrong, just oddly soulless. And full of the same AI tropes like em dashes and ‘it’s not this, it’s this‘!

It’s like everyone handed the same brief to the same intern who only speaks in polished, slightly robotic, simple sentences.

And consumers notice. Or rather, people notice. It almost feels like an actual scandal when you see a global brand has accidentally left the AI slop in their AI generated images for their AI authored marketing campaign.

Which brings us back to that looming question… If people are so sick of it, then when will the AI bubble burst?

The personal side, from curiosity to AI psychosis

It’s not just businesses getting carried away. Oh, no. We all know someone who has embraced AI in ways that feel a bit unhinged at times. And if that person is you? Listen, no judgement here. We’ve all been curious about if that text conversation with the situationship was ACTUALLY toxic or not.

But for a lot of people, we’ve moved beyond “this tool helps me draft emails” into “this tool understands me better than anyone else ever has.” And that’s where things start to veer into genuinely concerning territory and a growing conversation around a lil thing called AI psychosis.

What is AI psychosis? It’s a term being thrown around to describe the blurred lines between reality and AI-generated interaction.

People are using chatbots as therapists, relationship substitutes and full-blown emotional support systems. On the one hand, it makes sense. AI is always available, never judges and has been trained on an enormous amount of human language and psychology. Why bother your real friends and family who love you when you can run to an perpetually-in-agreement chatbot that has no feelings? Amirite?

On the other hand, it’s not real. And deep down, we all know that.

This is where AI psychosis becomes less of a shiny, new buzzword and more of a warning sign. When tools that are designed to assist start replacing human interaction, you’re not augmenting and enhancing your life anymore. You’re sidestepping it and handing the keys over to… well, Big Corp, basically.

And the scary irony is that a lot of people who outwardly critique AI and the capitalist world we live in are the same people who still use it to gas up their LinkedIn page. The reason it’s scary is because outsourcing your thinking is not as simple as plain old laziness; it’s actually addictive. And before you know it, your own brain is thinking in AI tropes: “I’m not lazy, I’m addicted”!

Is AI taking over the creative world?

Aaaand then there’s the elephant in the room: creativity.

AI can generate art, music, writing. Whatever you want. And technically, some of it is impressive. AI art has become it’s own art form, in the same way that a traditional artist uses the medium of paint and canvas. It can also empower people with very little resource (like, money) to create art and bring their creative ideas to life.

Buuut scratch the surface and the questions start piling up. Where did the training data come from? Who owns the output? Is remixing human creativity at scale innovation or just very efficient plagiarism?

Artists, musicians and writers are understandably twitchy. Sometimes because using AI feels like an unfair cutting of corners. And sometimes because AI is able to create because it’s just absorbing vast amounts of existing work, usually without consent.

So while in the business world AI is championing efficiency, there’s a growing unease about what’s being lost in the process. Originality?Value?

On the note of value, artists are asking the question… If everything can be generated instantly, what does anything actually cost? Art devaluing would certainly be a horrendous proposition for the world, but that’s another blog post entirely…

Anyway, you can feel the beginnings of AI decline creeping into the conversation yet again. When will that bubble burst, indeed.

The backlash is building

Also. Here’s the thing about any major tech boom. It always overcorrects.

Right now, AI is everywhere. All the products have it. Every pitch mentions it. Every conversation somehow loops back to it. And people are getting reeeaaal sick n’ tired.

There’s a distinct fatigue setting in because it feels relentless. It’s gone from exciting to inescapable! And there’s only so many times you can hear about “transformational AI solutions” before your eyes glaze over.

That fatigue is where AI decline starts to show its face. A moment where people start asking, “do we actually need this here?” instead of blindly adopting whatever’s new. And for some people, whatever’s easy. Sometimes it’s nice to use your brain, right?

But businesses that don’t recognise that shift risk becoming part of the noise along with AI itself.

So… When will the AI bubble burst?

The honest answer? Who knows. Sorry to make you read this far into the blog and not give a solid answer!

But it probably won’t burst in a dramatic, overnight way that you can plot wishfully into your calendar as the day the human race collectively abandoned AI.

What’s far more likely is a slow and steady correction and a gradual shift away from hype towards practicality.

The question of when will the AI bubble burst is less about timing, and more about behaviour. Oooh, wisdom.

We’re already seeing early signs, and here’s a very AI-coded bullet point list…

• More scrutiny around AI-generated content
• Pushback from creatives and industries affected by automation
• Growing awareness of AI psychosis and its implications, so less using Chat for your problems
• A noticeable drop in patience for unnecessary AI integrations
• An increased desire for genuine, authentic human creativity

What does the future look like, then?

Well, AI isn’t going anywhere. It won’t drop off the face of the Earth (or your LinkedIn feed, sadly). But nor should it. Because when it’s used properly, it’s incredibly useful in letting humans use their brains for stuff that actually requires them to.

We’re learning as a species addicted to ‘hype’ that not every problem needs an AI solution. Not every business process needs to be automated. And not every human interaction should be replaced with a chatbot, no matter how must of a ‘yes-man’ it is.

So if anything, this next phase will separate the businesses using AI thoughtfully from those just fobbing off all their business processes onto ‘the robots’.

And as that separation happens, the conversation around AI decline will change as well. It won’t be about the technology of AI getting worse or less useful, but more so about altering our expectations of how it can actually be used well.

Final thoughts (before we all log off LinkedIn for a bit)

In a nutshell, there’s nothing inherently wrong with AI. The issue is how quickly it’s been pushed into every corner of life and how much people are relying on it. We’ve gone from curiosity to dependency at an uncomfortable pace!

So when you ask when will the AI bubble burst, what you’re really asking is when things will calm down… When will AI stop being the centre of every discussion and quietly settle into its role as just another tool?

That moment is coming. Slowly, but surely. Until then, we think you can expect more debate, more pushback, and yes… Probably a few more dramatic takes on AI psychosis along the way. Because if there’s one thing we’re definitely not short on right now, it’s opinions about AI!

Got a question? We can answer it. Click here to get in touch.