Everyone on your feed has apparently transformed their business with AI.
The reality is that almost nobody actually has, and Elena Verna's piece on AI Confidence Theatre calls it out. Her test for anyone claiming a life-changing AI system: "Cool. Show me." Most of the time there's not much behind the curtain.
The fakery isn't the real damage though. The real damage is the fake baseline it sets.
When your feed is full of invisible AI teams and 100x agent workflows, a genuine win with AI starts to feel almost embarrassing. You stop valuing the thing that actually worked because someone else claims to have done so much more.
Here's what a real win looks like. A person who spends half of every week checking data by hand between two systems. Same checks, every week, for years. AI takes the checking. They take back half a week, every week, from now on. No agent swarm. No transformation story. Half a week returned to the work that actually needs their judgement.
That result is worth more than almost anything being performed online right now. But in the current climate, the person behind it half-apologises for it, because the theatre has convinced them everyone else is miles ahead.
They aren't. Most of the loud stuff doesn't survive a "show me."
The hype is costing us twice. It freezes the people who feel too far behind to start, and it devalues the wins already being had.
The bar isn't transformation. It's hours back, every week.
Here's Elena's piece: Please stop the AI Confidence Theater