A Perfectly Normal Year, With AI in Every Sentence
If you take the word AI out of your 2025 notes, presentations, and posts, you might find there’s not much left. That fact alone makes this year stand out.
In 2024, writing about AI became trendy. By the end of the year, it felt like there was too much of it. Every other post, panel discussion, and product update tried to sound smarter by mentioning artificial intelligence somewhere between the start and the end.
Then 2025 arrived, and things changed.
Suddenly, AI was no longer just a topic — it became a required buzzword. Every text included it. Every discussion felt incomplete without a mention. Conference agendas needed ‘AI-powered’ to appear at least twice. Even job descriptions seemed uneasy if AI wasn’t in the headline, ideally in all caps.
Sometimes it seems like we all decided that without AI, our ideas don’t matter, our products are outdated, and our jobs are in danger.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: life doesn’t stop where AI starts. This is true even if you work in IT, in media, or if your product roadmap has more neural networks than users.
People still disagree — not because there’s not enough data, but because their goals don’t match. Products still fail for human reasons: unclear ownership, rushed choices, fear of conflict, or just not saying “no” soon enough. A bad strategy is still bad, even if it’s dressed up in AI terms and shown with impressive charts.
AI doesn’t replace the basics. You still have to understand your users. You still need to define the problem before you solve it. You still have to explain your choices to people, not to machines. And no amount of automation can fix a team that lacks trust or a plan that changes every two weeks.
There’s also a quiet illusion happening. When everything is called AI-powered, nothing truly is. The word stops meaning technology and starts meaning ambition, worry, or just marketing. We’re not always building intelligence; often, we’re just trying to seem relevant.
Still, expectations keep rising. We want faster delivery, smaller teams, bigger results, and fewer mistakes. AI is supposed to handle the hard work, while people become more strategic, creative, and productive all at once. It’s a nice story, but it’s still just a story.
Looking back on this year, the real challenge wasn’t learning to use AI tools. The real challenge was remembering that AI is just a tool, not a personality. It’s a skill, not an identity. And it’s definitely not a substitute for judgment, experience, or responsibility.
Maybe in 2026 we’ll talk less about AI. Or maybe we’ll talk about it even more. It’s hard to know.
What I do hope is that we will remember how to talk about work, products, and people without sounding like we are trying to impress an algorithm rather than solve a real problem.