There’s a recurring shape to AI news. A polished demo drops — it does something astonishing in a 90-second clip, the timeline goes wild, “everything is different now.” Then you wait to actually use it, and either it never ships, or it ships and feels nothing like the video.

This isn’t always dishonesty. Demos are run in ideal conditions, on chosen examples, sometimes with a human quietly in the loop. The gap between “works in a demo” and “works reliably for everyone, cheaply, every time” is enormous — and it’s where most hype goes to die.

So when the next mind-blowing clip lands, the useful question isn’t “is this real?” It’s “can I use it myself today, and does it hold up on my own messy example?” If the answer is “sign up for the waitlist,” file it under maybe and check back in three months. Half of these never return.