The Hype Hangover

Three conferences in three weeks. Two sold vision. One shipped systems.

It’s been a busy month: ScaleUp:AI, Dreamforce, and the Databricks CIO Forum. Each promised to show what’s next for enterprise AI. Each was full of optimism, slick demos, and thoughtful discussions. Walking out of those ballrooms, one feeling kept coming back: the gap between the noise of AI and the work of AI has never been wider.

At two of the three, the energy was electric. The stages glowed, the slides dazzled, and every company claimed to be reshaping the world. But scratch beneath the slogans and you’d find something thinner. Optimism without operations. Panels circled the same talking points: data is the new oil, AI is transforming every function, responsible innovation is key. All true, but all surface-level. It felt less like a movement and more like a performance of progress.