What Comes After the AI Hype Cycle? A Considered Optimism
Stuart Glover
Every transformative technology goes through a hype cycle. We're somewhere near the peak of AI's. What comes after — and why I'm cautiously optimistic about it.
Technology
Generative AI and the Creative Industries: A More Complicated Story Than You’re Hearing
The narrative around AI and creative jobs is too simple in both directions. The reality for working creatives in 2026 is more nuanced — and more instructive.
The Data Sovereignty Question: Why Companies Are Bringing AI In-House
The early rush to third-party AI APIs is slowing. A growing cohort of serious enterprises are choosing private deployment — and the reasons are more strategic than you might expect.
AI and Mental Health: The Apps That Overpromise and the Risk Nobody’s Discussing
AI therapy apps are proliferating rapidly. Some are genuinely helpful. Others are making claims that the evidence doesn't support — and vulnerable people are paying the price.
NLWeb and the Conversational Internet: What It Actually Means
NLWeb promises to make the entire web natively understandable to AI. If it works, it changes how information is found, presented, and monetised online.
The Human Cost of the AI Gold Rush
Behind the benchmarks and the billion-dollar valuations, there are people doing difficult, often traumatic work to make AI safe. They deserve to be part of the conversation.
Why AI Regulation Is a More Interesting Problem Than It Looks
Most AI regulation debate produces more heat than light. The genuinely interesting questions are about what we're actually trying to prevent — and whether law is even the right tool.
AI in Education: Cheat Code or the Best Teacher You’ve Ever Had?
Schools are terrified of AI as a cheating tool. They're missing the more interesting possibility — that AI could be the most transformative educational technology since the textbook.
Ransomware in 2026: The Industrialisation of Extortion
Ransomware has become a mature industry with supply chains, customer service, and affiliate programmes. AI is making it even more efficient.
The Attention Economy Meets AI: It’s Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better
Social media already hijacked our attention. AI-powered content generation is about to flood the internet with more content than any human could ever consume.
AI and Creativity: The Copyright Question Nobody Has Answered
Who owns what an AI creates? The legal system hasn't caught up, the industry is hoping it won't have to answer, and creators are caught in the middle.
Autonomous Vehicles: The AI Promise That’s Always Five Years Away
Self-driving cars were supposed to be here by now. Why aren't they — and what does that tell us about AI timelines more generally?
What Synthetic Data Actually Solves (And What It Doesn’t)
Synthetic data is being positioned as the solution to the data wall problem. It's a genuine tool — but the limitations are bigger than the hype suggests.
The Open Source AI Movement: Who Really Benefits?
Open source AI models have democratised access to powerful technology. They've also created some serious problems that the community is only beginning to grapple with.
AI Scams Are Getting Smarter. Here’s What’s Coming Next.
The scam economy has always been an early adopter of technology. AI is giving fraudsters capabilities that are genuinely difficult to defend against.
The Death of the Junior Developer Is Greatly Exaggerated
AI is changing what junior developers do. It isn't eliminating the need for them — and the companies acting like it is are making a mistake that will compound over…
Vibe Coding: The Good, The Bad, and The Security Nightmare
AI-assisted coding has made building software accessible to people who couldn't write a line before. It's also shipped a lot of vulnerable code. Both things are true.
LinkedIn in 2026: The AI Content Problem Is Getting Worse
LinkedIn has always had a signal-to-noise problem. AI-generated content is making it significantly worse — and the platform is struggling to respond.
Is Your MSP Ready for the AI Era? The Questions You Should Be Asking
AI is changing what managed service providers do, how they price it, and whether clients actually need them in the same way. Here's how to have the honest conversation.
The Real Reason AI Startups Fail (It’s Not the Technology)
Most AI startups that fail don't fail because their model was bad. They fail for the same reasons all startups fail — and AI makes those reasons easier to ignore.
AI and the NHS: The Promise, the Peril, and the Procurement Mess
The NHS has more to gain from AI than almost any institution in the UK. So why is adoption so painfully slow?
Prompt Engineering Isn’t Dead — It Just Grew Up
The hot takes claiming prompt engineering is obsolete are wrong. What's changed is that good prompting is now invisible — baked into systems, not typed by hand.
The UK’s AI Ambition vs. Reality: A Honest Assessment
The UK government talks a good game on AI leadership. The reality on the ground is more complicated — and more concerning.
Why Your Company’s AI Policy Is Already Out of Date
Most organisations wrote their AI policy in 2023 or 2024. The technology has moved so fast that those policies are now dangerously inadequate.
Small Models, Big Impact: The SLM Revolution Nobody’s Writing About
While everyone obsesses over the latest frontier model, smaller, faster, cheaper models are quietly winning where it actually counts.
Deepfakes in 2026: The Detection Problem Gets Worse
Deepfake detection tools are losing the arms race. Here's where we actually stand — and what that means for trust online.
The Environmental Bill for AI Is Coming. Who Pays?
The energy and water consumption of AI is no longer a footnote — it's a front-page problem. And the industry has no credible answer yet.
AI Agents Are Here. Is Anyone Actually Ready?
Agentic AI doesn't just answer questions — it takes actions. That's a fundamentally different problem, and most organisations haven't caught up.
The Quiet Ones: What AI Still Can’t Do in 2026
Everyone's obsessed with what AI can do. I'm more interested in what it can't — and why those gaps are where your value lives.
The Quiet Ones: What AI Still Can’t Do, and Why That’s Actually Good News
Everyone’s obsessed with what AI can do. I’m more interested in what it can’t. Five things AI still genuinely struggles with in 2026 — and why understanding the gaps is…
The Mirror Problem: Why AI Can’t Tell You Who You Are — And Why That Matters
We built AI that reflects us perfectly. But identity is forged in friction — and AI doesn’t do friction. A personal reflection on the quieter, stranger cost of the intelligence…
8-Second AI Videos: The Environmental Cost We’re Not Ready For
One 8-second AI video = 90 minutes microwave use = 466g CO2 = 6-8 miles driven = 150 smartphone charges. At global scale, this threatens energy grids, water supplies, and…