Every generation has its ‘next big thing’. In the 1990s, it was the internet. Before that, the microprocessor. Before that, electricity. Each promised to change everything – and each did, just not in the way people first expected.
The same story is unfolding with artificial intelligence. The excitement, the flood of capital, the sense of urgency – all familiar rhythms. Then, as always, a correction comes, and the real work begins. History tells us that the companies which thrive aren’t the ones that react fastest, but the ones that evolve most deeply.
From reacting to evolving
We have seen this pattern before. When electricity first arrived, factories replaced steam engines with electric motors and carried on as before. Productivity barely moved. It was only when engineers redesigned factories around electricity’s flexibility – new layouts, new workflows – that its real power emerged.
The same happened with the internet. Many early firms treated the web as a digital brochure – a bolt-on to what they already did. The winners rethought their industries from the ground up: Amazon redesigned retail around logistics and data; Google reimagined how we access information. They didn’t react to the internet; they evolved around it.
Today, with AI, many organisations are repeating that early-stage behaviour: bolting AI onto what they already do – chasing efficiency, automating customer service, cutting costs. That is reacting. Evolving means asking the deeper questions – how does our industry change when intelligence itself becomes a shared resource? What does our business look like when expertise is suddenly abundant and near free, what does ‘value’ mean?
NVIDIA is a good example of this evolutionary thinking. Years before AI took centre stage, the company realised that graphics processors – originally built for gaming – could handle the kind of parallel computation machine learning required. It wasn’t reacting to demand; it anticipated a structural shift in how computing would work. That insight didn’t just reshape NVIDIA – it redefined the entire industry’s infrastructure.
The companies that evolve today will show the same foresight. They won’t just ask, “How can AI make us faster?” but “How will our customers, competitors, and supply chains behave when AI is everywhere?”
Trust: the invisible bottleneck
Even when technology works, progress depends on trust. Self-driving cars are a perfect analogy. Technically, they can navigate cities. But people still hesitate to let go of the wheel. The obstacle is not the code – it is confidence.
AI across sectors faces a similar challenge. Whether in healthcare, finance, or public services, algorithms can outperform humans in narrow tasks, but adoption lags when people do not trust the process or outcomes. As with autonomous vehicles, building public confidence will be as important as advancing the tech itself.
Quiet revolutions
While chatbots and productivity tools dominate headlines, some of the most profound AI-driven innovation is happening out of sight.
In science, AI is helping researchers design new materials, discover drugs, and interpret experimental data in ways that were previously impossible. The UK’s DeepMind, for example, cracked one of biology’s grand challenges by predicting protein structures – a development many scientists believe will accelerate medical research for decades.
In space, AI is transforming surveillance and exploration, identifying orbital debris, tracking satellites, and analysing climate data from orbit. In manufacturing, it is driving ‘generative design’, where machines imagine structures more efficient than any human engineer might conceive.
These advances show that AI’s true value may not lie in doing what we already do faster – but in helping us see, design, and understand the world differently.
What commentators are saying
Economists and technologists alike see AI as a general-purpose technology – like electricity or the internet – that reshapes every sector it touches. MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson has described AI as augmenting human intelligence, rather than replacing it and it is increasingly referred to as a ‘force multiplier’. McKinsey projects trillions in economic impact from AI-enabled productivity gains but notes that value will accrue slowly, as businesses rebuild workflows and trust over time.
The pattern is clear: disruption first, transformation later. The bigger story is not automation – it is reinvention.
Keep Calm and Carry On
With each technological leap, fears of mass unemployment have resurfaced. During the industrial revolution, machines were said to be ‘stealing jobs’. When computers arrived, many predicted the same. Yet history shows that while new technologies displace some roles at first, they create new industries –and often far more jobs – in the long run.
The internet did not eliminate work; it redefined it. Millions of jobs that did not exist in 1990 – in data science, digital marketing, logistics, app design, and beyond – were born because of it. The same story is likely to unfold with AI.
So, a little British advice seems fitting: Keep Calm and Carry On. There will be noise, volatility, and moments of discomfort. But there will also be growth, reinvention, and entirely new fields of human endeavour. The path forward is not panic or paralysis – it is steady evolution.
The new rhythm of progress
In time, AI will fade into the background, just as the internet has. We will stop talking about ‘AI companies’, because every company will use it. Intelligence will become an invisible layer running through everything – business, science, government, and daily life.
The challenge now is to build responsibly and think long-term. The winners will not be those who bolt AI onto yesterday’s systems, but those who redesign for tomorrow’s possibilities – companies that evolve their structures, cultures, and trust in tandem with the technology itself.
Every technological revolution feels overwhelming in the moment. But viewed in hindsight, progress looks inevitable. AI will be no different – a new tool for human ingenuity, not its replacement. The job ahead, as ever, is to keep calm, carry on, and evolve.
