We’re Using AI Like It’s 1995
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We’re Still Using AI Like It’s 1995—It’s Time to Wake Up
In the mid-90s, the internet was a shiny new toy. Businesses tripped over themselves to "go online," but their big move? Scanning glossy paper brochures and slapping them on a webpage. Voilà—a "website." Some restaurants still do this, treating their site like a digital menu stuck in 1995. Those early adopters weren’t wrong to jump in, but they weren’t visionaries either. They were just digitizing the past.
It wasn’t until companies stopped treating the internet like a filing cabinet and started reimagining industries that the real revolution began.
- Publishing: A handful of gatekeeping journalists gave way to self-publishing platforms. Suddenly, anyone could be a writer, commentator, or influencer—think Substack or X, where voices like Naval Ravikant or Lex Fridman share ideas directly with millions.
- Commerce: Brick-and-mortar stores were disrupted by Amazon, a company with no physical storefronts but infinite shelf space, redefining how we shop. Jeff Bezos didn’t digitize catalogs; he rethought commerce from the ground up.
- Entertainment: Movies and TV, once tethered to theater schedules or weekly time slots, became on-demand powerhouses like Netflix, available everywhere, all at once. Reed Hastings didn’t just digitize Blockbuster—he obliterated it.
The internet only became transformative when we stopped forcing old mindsets onto a new tool. AI is at that same crossroads today, and most of us are blowing it.
AI Is Stuck in Brochure Mode—And It’s Embarrassing
Right now, AI is the internet circa 1995. Companies are buzzing with excitement, rushing to adopt it, but what are they doing? Slapping chatbots on websites, automating meeting notes, generating summarized reports, or labeling dashboards “AI-powered” like it’s a marketing flex.
These are brochure-level moves—incremental, safe, and painfully uninspired.
Take a look at what’s out there:
- A retailer uses AI to suggest products based on past purchases. Cute, but it’s just a fancier recommendation engine.
- A law firm uses AI to summarize contracts. Helpful, but it’s still a human process with a digital assistant.
- A call center uses AI to handle basic customer queries. Efficient, but it’s not rethinking customer service—it’s just shaving seconds off hold times.
These are the equivalent of scanning a brochure and calling it a website. Useful? Sure. Revolutionary? Not even close. Most AI applications today aren’t painting a future—they’re doodling on the margins of the present.
The Next Leap Isn’t Efficiency—It’s Reinvention
The companies that will dominate the AI era won’t be the ones shaving 10 minutes off a task. They’ll be the ones who burn the task to the ground and build something new in its place. The internet didn’t win by digitizing paper—it won by reimagining what industries could be. AI demands the same audacity.
- Healthcare: Forget AI that speeds up paperwork. Imagine AI that diagnoses diseases with precision rivaling top specialists, prescribes treatments in real time, and personalizes care based on a patient’s genetic makeup. Companies like DeepMind are already pushing this with AlphaFold, solving protein folding in months—a problem that stumped scientists for decades.
- Education: Ditch AI that digitizes textbooks. Picture AI tutors that adapt to every student’s learning style, pace, and gaps, dismantling the one-size-fits-all factory model of classrooms. Sal Khan of Khan Academy is already leaning into this, using AI to scale personalized learning globally.
- Business: Stop building prettier dashboards. Build AI that collapses the decision-making loop—analyzing data, making decisions, and acting faster than any human could. Look at firms like Palantir, whose AI doesn’t just visualize data—it predicts outcomes and drives action.
As Peter Thiel says, “The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.”
The difference is mindset. Right now, most companies are following the crowd, tweaking existing processes with AI. The winners will rethink the processes entirely.
Real-World Rebels Already Breaking the Mold
Some are already moving past brochure mode. Take xAI’s Grok, for instance. It’s not just a chatbot answering FAQs—it’s a conversational engine designed to reason, challenge assumptions, and push users toward first-principles thinking. It’s not about automating customer service; it’s about redefining how we interact with knowledge.
Or consider autonomous driving. Tesla’s AI doesn’t just assist drivers—it’s reimagining transportation as a fully autonomous ecosystem. While others add lane-keeping or parking assist, Tesla’s betting on a future where cars drive themselves, fundamentally reshaping cities, logistics, and time.
These examples aren’t incremental—they’re existential. They don’t ask, “How do we use AI to do what we already do faster?” They ask, “What does this entire process look like when AI is the foundation?”
The Brochure Phase Won’t Last—Get Ahead or Get Left Behind
The internet didn’t transform industries by digitizing paper—it transformed them when companies started with the internet as the core and built forward. AI will follow the same path. Most organizations are still in brochure mode, chasing short-term wins. They’ll get some efficiency, sure, but they won’t lead.
The leaders will be the ones who stop asking, “How can AI make this faster?” and start asking, “What’s possible when AI is the starting point?” That’s first-principles thinking—stripping away assumptions and rebuilding from scratch.
The shift is coming, and it’s not polite—it’s ruthless. Companies that cling to brochure mode will be as relevant as Blockbuster in 2010.
