But the tech wasn’t ready, and the solutions it supposedly offered were often misaligned with real industry problems. Companies tried everything, from tracking pet food ingredients on blockchain, to launching loyalty programs with crypto tokens, often without clear benefits or better alternatives.
In the end, about 90 per cent of enterprise blockchain solutions failed by mid-2019.
THE GENERATIVE AI DEJA VU
Fast-forward to 2023, and the same pattern started playing out with AI. Digital media company BuzzFeed saw its stock jump more than 100 per cent after announcing it would use AI to generate quizzes and content. Financial services company Klarna replaced 700 workers with an AI chatbot, claiming it could handle millions of customer queries.
The results were mostly negative. Klarna soon saw a decline in customer satisfaction and had to walk back its strategy, rehiring humans for customer support this year. BuzzFeed’s AI content push failed to save its struggling business, and its news division later shut down. Tech media company CNET published AI-generated articles riddled with errors, damaging its credibility.
These are not isolated incidents. They’re signals that AI, like blockchain, was being over hyped.
WHY COMPANIES CHASE TECH HYPE
There are three main forces at play: inflated expectations, short-term view and flawed implementation. Tech companies, under pressure from investors and media narratives, overpromise what AI can do.
