Most large companies have formal policies, enterprise licenses, internal copilots, or approved tool stacks. In many sectors, AI is already embedded in day-to-day work. If adoption alone were the constraint, we should already see it in the productivity data.

And yet, the aggregate numbers remain underwhelming.

This tension is often framed as disappointment or hype fatigue. I think it is better understood as a timing and measurement problem. In this post, we will suggest a different, slightly more uncomfortable explanation to the fears of an AI bubble.