I had a similar opinion until I started to see a flood of outages, data leaks, money being pulled, etc starting to crop up right as co's started hailing AI as the second coming.

Now? I'm waiting for the inevitable reality check. AI doesn't go away (I personally don't want it to; it's a power tool for an experienced dev), but imo, the market is not too far from correcting the hype. Reality can only shoulder so much bs before the rubber has to hit the road.

The promises being made over the last few years are not being fulfilled and big money likes results, not talk. So, unless we get another (significant) rabbit coming out of the hat in 2026, the momentum (again, imo) won't be there to sustain the necessary long-term growth (i.e., in terms of mass-adoption, this era of AI is closer to AOL than Facebook).