Don't expect AI to transform the world overnight: Let's be patient

Like all tech revolutions, AI will take effect slowly. This is also why we must slow down to pace up

- VINEET NAYAR

Artificial intelligence (AI) will not save us. But people using AI might. Everywhere I go, I hear the same breathless excitement. Generative AI is hailed as the new saviour.

Some worship it as the ultimate game-changer. Others whisper about disruption and doom. Valuations climb, pilot projects multiply and everyone seems desperate to be the first to claim they've cracked the AI code. But fire illuminates and blinds in equal measure.

Transformations can take long: History is full of technological promises that did not arrive overnight. Electricity took more than 30 years to change how we lived and worked. Why? Because dangerous currents had to be made safe, buildings had to be rewired, tools re-engineered and new systems imagined.

The internet followed the same arc. The 1990s promised instant fortunes in the ‘click economy.’ By 2000, the dotcom bubble had wiped out trillions in market value. Yet, from that wreckage came Google, Amazon and the architecture of the digital age. The collapse wasn't failure—it was the clearing of the runway for serious transformation. AI is no different. You can’t just retrofit yesterday’s design and expect tomorrow's results. True change demands time, courage and reinvention.