Faster Than You Think: AI Will Hit Like an Asteroid

Every major technology has followed the same arc: big promise, slow delivery. Wake me when it's over. ERP promised transformation and delivered years of implementation. Cloud promised speed and delivered migration programs measured in years. The grander the claim, the longer the integration cycle. The pattern is predictable. Value doesn't appear until systems are rewired. APIs are mapped. Data models are reconciled. Machines have to learn to speak to machines — through hard-won, handwritten code — before enterprises benefit. Skepticism about AI's speed of adoption is reasonable. And yet this cycle will move very differently — not because AI is smarter, but because of where it's injected into the enterprise. Previous technologies demanded system-to-system integration first. ERP had to replace accounting workflows. CRM had to connect to sales infrastructure. Data warehouses needed pipelines before a single dashboard could roll out. AI doesn't start at the core. It starts at the human lay