Why 'this is real AI'is usually the wrong conversation.
Let me get this out of the way: AI is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. It is amazing, yeah, but so is a bandsaw (or so I am told, I am not very good at DIY).
I use AI every single day, by choice. And I use it every single day because it is everywhere these days. The suggestion from Spotify about the next Bruce Springsteen track I should listen to? AI came up with that. My watch keeping track of my activities? There is a form of AI there as well. I am sure you can come up with many more examples.
But let’s talk about the conscious choice to use AI for now. I use ChatGPT and Gemini 3 daily. I admit they have had their hands on this article. They read it and pointed out silly mistakes I made. I then corrected them (I am writing this before I went through the editing process, but I am sure they will find inconsistencies).
The text is still mine though, as is the flow and the conclusion. And all the obvious errors; they are mine too. Only the accompanying image is 100% AI generated (I simply cannot draw to save my life).
So, I like to use AI. And I love to talk about AI. But here things get interesting. Whenever I talk to people about AI, sooner or later the phrase “But this is real AI” pops up. The funny thing is: what the ‘real AI’ is always depends on who makes that claim.
If you talk to a self-proclaimed ‘promptologist’, they will point at the latest version of ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude/Grok and say that “Conversational AI” is real AI. Then go talk to a Data Scientist and find out that “Predictive AI” is the real thing. Of course, go to any developer and they will make sure you understand that Agentic AI is the knees bees.
Now imagine you are a c-level decision maker. And you hear all their stories. And all of them have valid points. What kind of system should you be focussing on? Should you set aside a budget for the next chatbot? Or should you work on a better predictive system for your customers? Or what is even this agentic-thingie you keep talking about?
And the answer is simple: you are asking the wrong question. You do not choose a technology to start with. The technology more or less chooses you. Spending time thinking about which AI to use is a bit like looking at the app store on your phone deciding which app to buy based on the colors in the icon. You should instead be wondering what problem you want to solve with your phone and then find the right app. The same applies to AI systems.
AI is a tool. You use the tool that solves a particular problem. You do not pick a tool at random and then go look for a problem to fix that matches this solution. That is tool-first thinking, instead of problem-solving thinking.
Let me get one thing straight: I really believe that AI should be a part of every company’s strategy. But what kind of AI that should be, and how much of it, depends on your company, your culture, your maturity level with technology in general and AI in particular, and many more factors.
Step one should be to look at those factors, identify issues within the organisation (or less strong: find areas you think improvement could be beneficial) and only then decide if AI is a potential solution.
I usually advice managers to start small, with define well-defined goals for a POC, then hire people who know how to do this, and then build it. Evaluate and then move on. The companies that do that usually see that AI can benefit (or if it doesn’t yet fit their culture, they can decide to stop without wasting too much money and time).
Don’t talk to someone at a network event and let them convince you that you really need Grok/ReinforcementLearning/MCP Servers or whatever we techies come up with. Treat AI as any tool you have at your disposal.
That is when the true value of AI comes to fruition.
Because, and I cannot repeat this enough: AI is a tool.